As of Sunday, the first five batters positioned in the Michigan baseball team’s lineup are hitting above .300. For the ever-hottening Wolverines inching closer to the postseason, that’s exactly what they need.
“We’ve changed the lineup a couple times, I don’t think we have a traditional X, Y and Z,” Michigan coach Tracy Smith said Sunday. “We just try to look at what the pitcher is doing, what’s his stuff, what are his analytics and try to match that with our personnel.”
The most important thing for the Wolverines’ current lineup isn’t pure talent, but rather how it changes to fit the situation. Constantly evolving, it has come into great success as of late; on Sunday, junior second baseman Colby Turner recorded Michigan’s longest hitting streak since 2000 at 24 games. Sophomore third baseman Brayden Jefferis has also been a steadfast swinger, going 8-for-14 over the entire series against Washington.
Adding onto this, junior Joonsung Park and redshirt sophomore Cooper Mullens have used their designated hitting talents to clutch up for the Wolverines — Park against the Huskies and Mullens against Oregon. While the two aren’t the most consistent hitters, they make up for it in the power behind their bats. Mullens has five extra-base hits on his total of 17, and Park has four on his total of eight. But when these bombs take a backseat, Michigan finds its groove in taking things nice and steady.
“You can hit the ball 110 miles per hour off the bat and it’s an out, or you can dribble one down to third and it’s a base hit to keep the rally going,” Smith said Saturday.
While the Wolverines currently rank near the bottom of the Big Ten in doubles and triples — and dead last in homers — Turner leads in batting average. For a Michigan team that preaches the small-ball method, staying consistent with batting in all frames of the game keeps hope churning, even while down. In their final game against Washington, the Wolverines were batting .308 when there were two outs.
With the shifting lineup, the consistency the batters bring to these tense two-out scenarios, situations with runners aboard or even leadoff plate appearances are vital to giving the team energy. Two redshirt sophomores, catcher Noah Miller and center-fielder Evan Haeger, exemplify this as the other Michigan batters hitting over .300. Of their 70 combined hits this season, 45 of them were singles — a trend most noticeably broken by Haeger’s five homers. The two find themselves in the top of the lineup because of the ability to make those consistent hits,regardless of how small they may be.
“Nobody wants to be pinch hit for, I understand that,” Smith said. “But if we can get incrementally better in that matchup, and we’ve got someone on the bench that does that, we’ll do it.”
The Wolverines aren’t afraid to sub their batters out — they called on pinch hitters a total of 13 times in their series against the Huskies. But Michigan often doesn’t need to call on them. Repeatedly, the starting lineup is enough to get the ball rolling, keeping the runs coming through on those simple swings.
