{"id":1093,"date":"2025-05-01T05:04:05","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T05:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/keegan-ohearn-adapts-to-michigans-needs\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T05:04:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T05:04:08","slug":"keegan-ohearn-adapts-to-michigans-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/keegan-ohearn-adapts-to-michigans-needs\/","title":{"rendered":"Keegan O\u2019Hearn adapts to Michigan\u2019s needs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>When Keegan O\u2019Hearn <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/kohearn29\/status\/1618021387003887616\">committed<\/a> to the Michigan baseball team in 2023, he was among the top ten Class of 2027 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.perfectgame.org\/college\/CollegeCommitments.aspx?Grad=2023&amp;college=1795\">commits<\/a>. At the time, O\u2019Hearn primarily played in the outfield but had displayed immense athletic versatility during his high school career. But his first college season was cut short due to a season-ending injury.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the 2025 season, the now-healthy sophomore has floated through the Wolverines\u2019 staff. From providing relief on the mound to pinch hitting, O\u2019Hearn has exemplified the qualities that Michigan coach Tracy Smith values on his team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs we\u2019ve said all season, we\u2019re going to let guys spread around a little bit,\u201d Smith said Feb. 17.\u00a0 \u201cWe let guys earn opportunities and earn positions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While O\u2019Hearn may have committed to the Wolverines as an outfielder, he has long intended to be a stabilizing presence on the mound. O\u2019Hearn holds an assertive fastball that at its peak reaches 97 mph. On a team where the most-<a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/lally-secures-michigan-10-0-win-against-mount-st-marys\/\">experienced<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/kurt-barr-stalls-iowa-offense-still-not-enough-for-michigan-to-win\/\">starters<\/a> are better known for their offspeed pitches, this commanding fastball would be a powerful tool for Smith to have in his arsenal. And while O\u2019Hearn has shown flashes of this talent, his ability to control his pitches remains in flux and leaves him out of the consistent bullpen rotation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>O\u2019Hearn has pitched a mere 2.2 innings for Michigan, with his first outing occurring in the Wolverines\u2019 blowout <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/pitching-issues-plague-michigan-in-loss-to-ucla-22-5\/\">loss<\/a> to UCLA. Entering in the third inning and letting up two earned runs, O\u2019Hearn was just one piece of the puzzle in Michiagn\u2019s team-wide loss. O\u2019Hearn inherited the third inning from junior right-hander Brandon Mann, who had entered the third inning after sophomore right-hander Wyatt Novara loaded the bases.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>While O\u2019Hearn escaped his outing against the Bruins, giving up just two hits on two runs, his lack of control was evident. Facing 10 batters, O\u2019Hearn had one wild pitch, balked once, gave up three free bases and one extra-base hit. While he may have secured the most strikeouts of any of the Wolverines\u2019 pitchers in the competition, his lack of consistency proved to be his Achilles heel.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe would love to use O\u2019Hearn more,\u201d Smith said March 28 after O\u2019Hearn\u2019s brief appearance in Michigan\u2019s Game 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/michigan-defense-struggles-to-keep-pace-falling-to-penn-state-12-5\/\">loss<\/a> to Penn State. \u201cBut as you can see, the command piece is tough. He is tough to hit, but in this game you can\u2019t defend a walk. And Keegan while he does throw hard, the command is the issue. So we\u2019re still trying to develop that and pick a spot where we can use him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But O\u2019Hearn hasn\u2019t let his floundering on the mound define him. Instead, O\u2019Hearn has become a semi-consistent pinch-hitter for the Wolverines and received his first collegiate start <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/explosive-first-inning-cements-michigan-win-early-over-michigan-state-6-5\/\">Sunday<\/a> against Michigan State as a designated hitter. Michigan has cycled through a few faces at the DH spot including redshirt freshman catcher Noah Miller and senior right-hander Will Rogers, but the Wolverines have yet to identify a consistent starter at the spot. So when O\u2019Hearn got his chance at the job Sunday, he certainly took advantage of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In his three at-bats against the Spartans, O\u2019Hearn reached base in each appearance securing two hits and one free base. Slotting in at the eighth spot, O\u2019Hearn rounded out a bottom third of the lineup that was exceptionally <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/bottom-of-the-order-drive-michigan-to-8-2-victory-over-michigan-state\/\">successful<\/a> for Michigan against Michigan State. O\u2019Hearn ended Sunday\u2019s appearance with one RBI and one double, proving that he holds power not only in his pitch but also in his swing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201c(We\u2019re) making sure we\u2019re getting good, aggressive at-bats at the DH spot,\u201d Michigan assistant coach Jake Valentine said Sunday. \u201cKeegan has been taking really good, process-oriented BP for the last two weeks and he\u2019s been having a really good show of it. So it was time that he earned it, and obviously he went out there and did a great job. So I\u2019m really excited for him to see some success with the work that he\u2019s put in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It would be easy to discount the impact of Keegan O\u2019Hearn. The sophomore has made a meager eight appearances for the Wolverines and has had up-and-down outings both on the mound and behind the plate. But the surface-level stats don\u2019t show the resilience of O\u2019Hearn. While it\u2019s unlikely that O\u2019Hearn will become a starter for Michigan in 2025, it\u2019s clear that his influence will continue to be integral for the Wolverines.<\/p>\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>When Keegan O\u2019Hearn committed to the Michigan baseball team in 2023, he was among the top ten Class of 2027 commits. At the time, O\u2019Hearn primarily played in the outfield but had displayed immense athletic versatility during his high school career. But his first college season was cut short due to a season-ending injury.\u00a0 In [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1216,1214,726,1215],"class_list":{"0":"post-1093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-adapts","9":"tag-keegan","10":"tag-michigans","11":"tag-ohearn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093","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=1093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1095,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions\/1095"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}