Until recently the Michigan baseball team regularly used upward of seven pitchers to finish out a single game. But this weekend just five Wolverines took the mound over the entire three-game series. And that’s how they won.
The bullpen’s utility and the starting pitchers’ stability propelled Michigan to its third straight conference series win. The Wolverines’ (14-18 overall, 6-3 Big Ten) pitching endurance earned them a 2-1 weekend against Iowa (16-13, 5-4).
Freshman right-hander Dylan Vigue started on Friday night, and he threw five innings for the first time this season. An early RBI for the Hawkeyes put them on the board in the bottom of the second, but that was the only earned run under Vigue’s name for the night.
In the fifth, Michigan tied the game and took the lead from Iowa off an RBI single. Sophomore right-hander Kurt Barr came in to relieve Vigue in the sixth and the next three innings were a pitching showdown. With both teams scoreless pushing the 2-2 game into the 10th inning. And the dam finally broke in the Hawkeyes’ favor with a walk-off 3-2 win.
And in the same fashion as the past two weekend series, the Wolverines headed into Saturday already down a game.
“(It’s) who can step up,” Michigan coach Tracy Smith said. “And who can potentially reveal themselves as a guy who we can go to on the weekend and help out some of the load.”
Following that game one loss, the Wolverines’ looked for someone to follow Friday night’s strong performance and take control of the mound in their doubleheader. And a combination of three pitchers over the 18 innings stepped up to the challenge.
Sophomore right-hander Mitch Voit took the first leap with his start on Saturday. Voit gave up early runs in the first two innings of the game to put Michigan back in a 2-0 deficit going into the third inning. Freshman designated hitter Collin Priest put the game back in the Wolverines’ hands with a homer that brought Voit home alongside him. After walks forced in a run, Michigan took a 3-2 lead. Voit gave up his third run in the fifth inning, but due to another walk forcing a run across the plate, the Wolverines held tight to their one-run lead at 4-3.
When Smith called once again for someone to step up, junior right-hander Will Rogers ran to the dugout to drop off his catching gear and swiftly returned to the mound.
“We got two-way guys,” Smith said. “Guys catching and going into pitch to close. I think that’s the thing that stands out to me the most is just the overall embracing of whatever it takes.”
And Rogers was exactly the type of two-way guy Smith needed.
He entered in the seventh inning and closed out the second game, giving up just two hits and no runs. But he wasn’t satisfied after earning the save. With a few innings left in the tank, Rogers took the mound once more for the second game of the doubleheader, but for the first time in the season, he didn’t relieve — he started.
Rogers pitched the first two innings of the next game and left 1-1 tie for fifth-year left-hander Jacob Denner. But Rogers’s ability to push into the second game in the first place set the bullpen up for success rather than leaving them to scramble.
“Today doesn’t happen without (Rogers) on the back end of game one,” Smith said. “And starting the game two because that allowed us to use Denner effectively.”
After Iowa put up two runs in the third inning, Denner pitched his way through the fourth scoreless. The Wolverines rallied through the fifth and sixth innings to put up four runs from small ball play taking the lead, 5-3.
An explosive eighth inning for Michigan’s bats sent the game from a close one to a runaway. With two outs on the board, the Wolverines scored five runs to close out the game, 10-6. The cohesiveness of Voit and Rogers to Denner put Michigan in a spot to minimize arms but maximize results, a delicate balancing act it hasn’t managed to achieve until this weekend.
The conservative use of arms is necessary for the Wolverines to manage a successful weekend with a handful of reliable pitchers. But it’s not the desired result Smith wants. Only having a few options to call during the weekend while searching for starters during midweek games puts Michigan in a conundrum.
And as the Wolverines are set to play five games in the next week, the management of their arms can be the deciding factor between a week full of losses and a week full of wins.