OMAHA, Neb. — Against Iowa’s ace, sophomore right-hander Brody Brecht, any ball hit through the infield felt like a home run for the Michigan baseball team. But for the Wolverines, it didn’t seem to matter that they were playing within the 120-foot bounds of the infield dirt because runners crossed home plate nonetheless.
Brecht had the Michigan hitters on lockdown in the opening round of Big Ten Tournament, eliminating seven Wolverines via strikeout in just his first five innings of work. And any contact that Michigan could muster amounted in weak rollovers that were easily gobbled up by the Hawkeyes’ infield. With Brecht’s combination of a fastball touching 98 miles-per-hour and a devastating wipeout slider, though, weak ground ball contact is expected.
“Anytime you’re facing an arm like Brody Brecht, it’s a tough challenge to begin with,” Michigan coach Tracy Smith said.
Despite not amassing much success in the form of hard-hit line-drives, the Wolverines still manufactured ample scoring opportunities without leaving the infield. In the third inning, a hit-by-pitch, an error by Iowa and an infield single loaded the bases. But the opportunity vanished as soon as it appeared when graduate right fielder Stephen Hrustich tapped a double-play ball right back to Brecht.
While the ball never left the infield during Michigan’s fleeting threat, it proved that it didn’t need to scorch the ball into the outfield to succeed. Instead, the Wolverines can create their own chances. But allowing a team to continuously step to home plate just to walk back to the dugout empty handed for five straight innings takes both patience and trust — virtues that Smith assembled throughout the season.
“When you watch 57 games, our formula hasn’t hasn’t changed too much,” Smith said. “It’s just allowing the guys to play.”
Out after out, Smith didn’t panic. Even as he watched his frustrated batters fail to push the ball out of the infield, he continued to let his guys play.
Eventually, a crack appeared in the force-field surrounding the infield. Seemingly inconsequential, sophomore center fielder Jonathan Kim lifted the ball toward the Hawkeyes’ left fielder, who stepped a few paces to his right and easily made the play. Kim’s hit was an out just the same, but it was the Wolverines first fly ball nonetheless.
In Michigan’s two-run sixth inning, the ball touched an outfielder only once, which was on an insignificant fly out. A single that glanced off the second baseman’s glove, two free passes and a wild pitch was plenty for two runs to come across for the Wolverines. Without leaving the infield — and with a little bit of luck — Michigan plated its two most important runs of its season thus far.
“I heard the guys saying ‘gritty, not pretty,’ ” Smith said. “So that about sums that one up, because that’s what it was.”
It’s true, the way that the Wolverines scored in the sixth inning was not pretty. In fact, an extremely solid argument could be made that it was ugly. But a postseason win doesn’t require adjectives. Both a pretty win and an ugly win produce the same result in the win column.
And it was fitting that Michigan won the game on a walk-off walk. Sure, a walk-off home run would have been prettier, but a walk wins the game just the same.
Sometimes, Michigan wins games by smoking 430-foot moonshots over the outfield walls, but Wednesday, it just needed the 120-feet of the infield dirt.