{"id":1021,"date":"2025-04-26T16:48:45","date_gmt":"2025-04-26T16:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/26\/michigan-pitching-navigates-new-situations-in-win-over-michigan-state\/"},"modified":"2025-04-26T16:48:48","modified_gmt":"2025-04-26T16:48:48","slug":"michigan-pitching-navigates-new-situations-in-win-over-michigan-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/26\/michigan-pitching-navigates-new-situations-in-win-over-michigan-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Michigan pitching navigates new situations in win over Michigan State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Very little about the Michigan baseball team\u2019s pitching performance was normal in its win over Michigan State on Friday. A two-hour rain delay stalled the game, outs came in different fashion and a surprise relief appearance subverted the Wolverines\u2019 usual late-game closer. And yet, they still held the Spartans to just two runs on the day en route to an 8-2 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/bottom-of-the-order-drive-michigan-to-8-2-victory-over-michigan-state\/\">victory<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>First off, Michigan trotted out a new Friday starter in junior right-hander Kurt Barr. While Barr has pitched great as of late, he had yet to open a series as the starter until Friday night. Coming off arguably his best <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/kurt-barr-stalls-iowa-offense-still-not-enough-for-michigan-to-win\/\">start<\/a> of the season where he shut down a prolific Iowa offense last weekend, Barr switched tactics in order to get outs. After notching eight punch-outs against the Hawkeyes, Barr kept his pitch count low against Michigan State by pitching to contact instead of carving hitters.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMe and Kurt are both Michiganders,\u201d Wolverines center fielder Greg Pace Jr. said. \u201cSo we grew up playing against these guys and know how to pitch them and play them defensively.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With this insight, Barr incorporated a different pitch mix than what he usually does. Opting to work more with his hard pitches, cutters and two-seams, Barr missed barrels and generated weak contact from the Spartans\u2019 order.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI feel like I\u2019m a curveball pitcher,\u201d Barr said. \u201cBut I only threw five curveballs today so the fastball and cutter were working well. I didn\u2019t need to strike people out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Barr was making quick work of the Michigan State bats through six innings \u2014 only allowing one run. But as he lit up the radar with fastballs, dark clouds brought rain to Ray Fisher stadium, forcing a 90-minute lightning and weather delay.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Likely due to the amount of time waiting for play to resume, Barr\u2019s day was done with a final line of six innings, one run and 71 pitches \u2014 another great start albeit with a better result. After play resumed, Barr\u2019syounger brother, freshman right-hander Preston Barr, was brought in to pitch the seventh and eighth innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite giving up back-to-back base hits in the seventh inning, Preston stayed the course and worked a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning and strand a runner in scoring position.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s super level-headed,\u201d Kurt said of his brother\u2019s attitude on the mound. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t think when he\u2019s out there, he just throws. That\u2019s kind of his superpower.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>The very next inning, Preston retired the heart of the Spartans\u2019 order in sequence. Preston was undeterred by the delay and it showed on the mound. He came out throwing strikes and didn\u2019t let trouble in the seventh inning change his game plan. Again, thrown into an unorthodox situation, a Wolverines pitcher stayed the course and pitched through uncertianty.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For the ninth inning, Michigan brought in junior right-hander Brandon Mann. Coming into Friday\u2019s appearance with a 22.50 ERA, Mann hasn\u2019t been lights out on the mound. He has also been used sparingly in conference play, with just two appearances against Big Ten opponents \u2014 mostly after the game was already out of hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Yet he was entrusted with the win and he delivered it. While not perfect, allowing a run in his inning of work, Mann got the job done and even stranded a runner at third after giving up a triple off the wall.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201c(Mann) did his thing and he pitched well,\u201d Kurt said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Not only did Mann \u201cdo his thing,\u201d both Barrs did as well. Weathering the storm, literally and figuratively, all three Wolverines pitchers negotiated unorthodox situations in the win. And while a new series opener, pitching after a rain delay and a new closer were all unfamiliar, they proved themselves to be successful in Friday night\u2019s win.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Very little about the Michigan baseball team\u2019s pitching performance was normal in its win over Michigan State on Friday. A two-hour rain delay stalled the game, outs came in different fashion and a surprise relief appearance subverted the Wolverines\u2019 usual late-game closer. And yet, they still held the Spartans to just two runs on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1022,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[222,1149,1148,1150,361,248],"class_list":{"0":"post-1021","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-michigan","9":"tag-navigates","10":"tag-pitching","11":"tag-situations","12":"tag-state","13":"tag-win"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1023,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions\/1023"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}