Through nine innings, the Michigan baseball team managed to put just four runners in scoring position. Recording a mere three hits through the entire competition, the Wolverines struggled to spark any offensive momentum. While Michigan stagnated at the plate, Indiana surged and easily secured the series in a seven-run win.
“We got our butts kicked tonight,” Wolverines coach Tracy Smith said. “It was honestly in every facet of the game that they really shut us down big time. We really didn’t do much offensively.”
Between the first three batters in the Michigan lineup, just one hit was recorded. In the third inning, graduate shortstop Benny Casillas led off the Wolverines’ batters to kickstart one of the lone flashes of Michigan offense with a hit into right field. But Casillas’ hit didn’t come solely from his own volition. Casillas certainly smashed the ball into the outfield, but Indiana right fielder Andrew Wiggins tracked the hit deftly to seemingly secure an easy out for the Hooisers. Instead though, the ball’s momentum carried it out of Wiggins’ glove, and Casillas was awarded a single.
Casillas’ hit may have been more thanks to an Indiana fielding mishap, but it was integral to setting up the Wolverines’ solitary run of the matchup. Earlier in the third inning, junior center fielder Greg Pace Jr. secured the first Michigan hit of the competition with a double through center field. But like Casillas, Pace’s offensive spark was attributed less to his hit and instead to his aggressive base running. Sliding underneath Hooisers’ second baseman Tyler Cerney’s tag, Pace slid into second base just in time. Moved over to third by Casillas’ following hit and then brought home by a sacrifice fly, Pace’s run marked the start, and subsequent end, of the Wolverines’ offense.
“We fell behind pretty early in the game,” Pace said. “Not that it’s not possible, but it’s not the easiest to continue rally hits on runs. As we’re chasing six, seven runs it’s really tough to do that.”
As Michigan struggled to mount any momentum at the plate, Indiana had no trouble tacking on hits. Striking first in the third inning, the Hoosiers smashed the ball out of the park twice. A leadoff homer from Cerney broke open Indiana’s scoring, and just two batters later right fielder Devin Taylor went yard clearing the bases, and put the Hoosiers ahead 4-0. Indiana doubled its score by the end of the competition, with four other batters getting in on the hitting frenzy.
The Wolverines attempted to mirror this in their offensive approach, with batters swinging aggressively throughout the competition. Instead of the plethora of hits that it produced for Indiana though, Michigan batters often left the plate striking out swinging, with the Hoosiers retiring six batters this way. In over half of the innings, the Wolverines’ batters went three up three down as Indiana’s pitching staff handedly commanded the mound.
“A lot of our outs, some came from strikeouts, but a lot were from weak contact,” Pace said. “That was his goal, was to get us to swing at some bad pitches and get us to chase in our approach, and I think he unfortunately did a pretty good job at it.”
In the eighth inning, when sophomore center fielder AJ Garcia pinch hit for Pace, one of the sole Michigan batters with a hit in the competition, it was clear that the Wolverines’ goal shifted from winning to simply surviving. Pinch hitting continued as Smith gave batters valuable game time, but even this proved futile as not one pinch hitter secured a hit for Michigan. Saturday, the Wolverines failed to mount any competition against the Hoosiers, ultimately sacrificing the series with the loss.
