win<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\u201cWe got our butts kicked tonight,\u201d Wolverines coach Tracy Smith said. \u201cIt was honestly in every facet of the game that they really shut us down big time. We really didn\u2019t do much offensively.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019 batters to kickstart one of the lone flashes of Michigan offense with a hit into right field. But Casillas\u2019 hit didn\u2019t 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\u2019s momentum carried it out of Wiggins\u2019 glove, and Casillas was awarded a single.<\/p>\n
Casillas\u2019 hit may have been more thanks to an Indiana fielding mishap, but it was integral to setting up the Wolverines\u2019 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\u2019s offensive spark was attributed less to his hit and instead to his aggressive base running. Sliding underneath Hooisers\u2019 second baseman Tyler Cerney\u2019s tag, Pace slid into second base just in time. Moved over to third by Casillas\u2019 following hit and then brought home by a sacrifice fly, Pace\u2019s run marked the start, and subsequent end, of the Wolverines\u2019 offense.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\n\u201cWe fell behind pretty early in the game,\u201d Pace said. \u201cNot that it\u2019s not possible, but it\u2019s not the easiest to continue rally hits on runs. As we\u2019re chasing six, seven runs it\u2019s really tough to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019 batters went three up three down as Indiana\u2019s pitching staff handedly commanded the mound.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of our outs, some came from strikeouts, but a lot were from weak contact,\u201d Pace said. \u201cThat 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.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u2019 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.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\n\n\t\t<\/aside>\n
Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"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.\u00a0 \u201cWe got our butts kicked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[1479,595,222,835,623,1502],"class_list":{"0":"post-1351","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-indiana","9":"tag-loss","10":"tag-michigan","11":"tag-offense","12":"tag-series","13":"tag-stunted"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351","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=1351"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1353,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1351\/revisions\/1353"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}