The Michigan baseball team’s mentality has been the same all season, focusing on potential and momentum in games against solid opponents. But sometimes that mentality starts to look more like an excuse than a mindset.
Relying too heavily on ideas of potential and momentum has to some extent kept the Wolverines from taking dominant wins.
While Michigan has three conference series wins, that success disguises some of their long-term struggles. Extending such successes into upcoming midweek games against less skilled opponents will be key as the Wolverines look to develop more consistent play.
Heading into the season, the main point of discussion surrounding Michigan was its host of new faces. These discussions have often been brushed off by members of the team who instead choose to focus on the environment they are working to create. The Wolverines believe in the united front they have and are simply waiting for their unit to meld.
But they are 32 games into the season, and truly dominant performances are few and far between.
“We’ve shown bits and pieces of the baseball we know we’re capable of playing,” graduate shortstop Kyle Dernedde said March 3. “And we also showed bits and pieces of the areas we need to work on and continue to improve. I truly believe, and I think everyone in the clubhouse believes, that we still haven’t really tapped into our full potential yet.”
Dernedde was referring to the intense third week of the season when Michigan played in California and faced UCLA, UC Irvine and San Diego. Against competitive opponents, the Wolverines faired well, putting up a forceful win on the mound against the Bruins. But the following two games were filled with frustrating missteps and simple communication errors that led them to fall 12-4 to the Anteaters and 9-1 to the Torreros. Michigan brushed off these undesirable results as early season fumbles against talented competition.
“The record isn’t what we wanted,” Michigan coach Tracy Smith said March 6. “You never want to loose, but you’ve got to take something away from each loss. And my belief is playing good competition is going to make you ready.”
As the Wolverines returned to Ann Arbor though, those trends followed them. The duality of flashes of exciting play coupled with ignorant mistakes illustrated their games. In it’s home opener against Toledo, Michigan put up seven runs, inching its way to a one-run win in the twelfth inning. But just one week later the Wolverines traveled to Eastern Michigan where they fell 14-4 in a run-rule loss. Early season patterns of defensive deficiencies continued to follow Michigan, but this time it fell to a lesser opponent in the Egales — as opposed to the strongly ranked competition from earlier in the season.
“I think we think we play the momentum game a little bit too much sometimes,” graduate outfielder Stephen Hrustich said March 15. “If we’re doing good we stay there but if we get punched then we kind of bring it down a little bit.”
This momentum-based game continues to plague the Wolverines’ mentality as emotions heavily influence their success. In multiple weekend series, Michigan has been able to combat this by allowing itself time to reset between matchups and gain momentum in the latter half of the weekend. Winning all three Big Ten series so far 2-1, the Wolverines have learned how to ride the wave of their momentum. But in singular games, it’s a bit more complicated.
Michigan looks to reverse this tendency against Western Michigan and Wisconsin Milwaukee in upcoming back-to-back midweek games. The Wolverines will likely attempt to carry over their momentum from their most recent conference series against Iowa, where they were able to scrape through with a win despite continuing frustrations.
Middle innings tend to be where Michigan feels the brunt of this trend, when, unable to capitalize off of their powerful batters, they often leave runners stranded.
“At-bat executions are a little shaky,” senior first baseman Dylan Stanton said March 24. “But we’ll get back to Ann Arbor and work on it. Happy how the weekend went but a lot to improve on.”
Stanton echoed the sentiments Dernedde shared at the beginning of the season: the team has exciting but inconsistent moments and its lack of clean play continue to need improvement. But contrary to Derenedde’s earlier statement, Stanton is reflecting off of a successful weekend for the Wolverines.
Change has occurred and series wins are becoming more common, but the Wolverines’ mentality remains the same. As Michigan continues to depend on potential and unreliable momentum swings, dominant wins will likely continue to elude them. Potential is exciting for pre-season discussions, but as games continue to compound, consistent results become more meaningful.