TOLEDO, Ohio — For the Michigan baseball team, power at the plate hasn’t been its mantra this season. When mulling over this, every potential run is a coveted resource.
Considering they left 17 on base by the final inning, the Wolverines squandered lots of potential foot traffic across home plate. However, one player confirmed his crossing of the dish with a homer, on top of going 2-for-2: junior third baseman Brayden Jefferis.
His play began mundanely, drawing two walks from the Toledo mound. After stealing second and being shoved to third from another walk supplied by the deteriorating Rockets pitcher, he was one of many left on base in a squandered grand slam opportunity.
However, Jefferis wasn’t prepared to let his batting performances at Fifth Third Field finalize out of his hands.
“Getting it to a two run lead with two to go, that’s a big run for us,” Michigan coach Tracy Smith said. “That’s a big win for us.”
For anyone paying attention to his season, his ever-accelerating performance is no shocker. Throughout the season, he has batted just shy of .300, bringing home 17 runs on 38 hits — but the past two weeks have been a different story for Jefferis. Since finalizing their series against Rutgers, the Wolverines have witnessed Jefferis blossom into a 0.353 batting average.
And today, his homer was the cherry on top of his offensive evolution, the very first of his career.
In a game riddled with stolen bases — six, to be exact — Jefferis elected for a more simplistic tactic. Things looked ever bright for Toledo as it maintained its momentum from the third inning on — despite Michigan snatching the lead in the fourth. Jefferis assumed the position opposite of this red-hot defense, and launched one down the left field line to clear the entire park.
“That was good, because they kind of had the momentum going there,” Smith said. “That was big.”
The Wolverines rallied behind Jefferis, and the shift in momentum came with a two-run lead they held onto until the very end of the game. He needed to uphold a level of play that the Wolverines typically expect from their other starters, as many of his fellow lineup members struggled to prove themselves at the dish.
Both batters currenting hitting above a .300 on the season, redshirt sophomore catcher Noah Miller and junior second baseman Colby Turner, were the only other ones to get hits on the day, yet in a much less productive manner. Both of Turner’s hits were doubles, yet Michigan never converted his accomplishments into runs.
The two have come to fill the primary hitting role for Michigan, yet Jefferis remains shortly behind. In their shadow, Jefferis embodied his evolution to keep the Wolverines afloat, and to firmly anchor their victory in the end.
Jefferis hasn’t always started at third base. He hasn’t always been sixth in the lineup. But, he has always remained steadfast in Michigan’s dugout — and today his performance proved why.
