{"id":5061,"date":"2026-05-05T21:49:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T21:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/05\/remaining-series-becoming-increasingly-daunting-for-michigan-postseason-chances\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T21:49:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T21:49:23","slug":"remaining-series-becoming-increasingly-daunting-for-michigan-postseason-chances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/05\/remaining-series-becoming-increasingly-daunting-for-michigan-postseason-chances\/","title":{"rendered":"Remaining series becoming increasingly daunting for Michigan postseason chances"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>As of Monday, the Michigan baseball team ranked No. 42 in <a href=\"https:\/\/d1baseball.com\/stories\/postseason-snap-which-teams-helped-hurt-their-cases-in-week-12\/\">RPI<\/a>, a feat pulled off after following through on an away-series <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/michigan-bites-maryland-back-to-sweep-series-8-7-in-game-of-small-mistakes\/\">sweep<\/a> of Maryland. But while it snowballs into a more potent player in the NCAA postseason, its remaining regular season opponents have similarly grown. Hoping to lock in an NCAA tournament berth, the Wolverines\u2019 don\u2019t have very many wins they can squander for the sake of their RPI.<\/p>\n<p>The first of Michigan\u2019s two remaining series is against Minnesota, who currently rank No. 86 in RPI. Unassuming at first glance, the Golden Gophers have taken three of their last four series\u2019 \u2014 their only defeat coming to No. 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/michigan-baseball-loss-to-ucla\/\">UCLA<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou lose that game, it puts you in serious trouble for the postseason stuff,\u201d Wolverines coach Tracy Smith said April 22 after a midweek victory.<\/p>\n<p>While Minnesota isn\u2019t the most powerful opponent, an away loss would be devastating for Michigan\u2019s RPI. Against Maryland in College Park, a loss could have brought the Wolverines\u2019 RPI down by a potential four to six points.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Looking further ahead, the bigger story is obvious: Ohio State. Trailing slightly behind the Gophers at No. 88, the Buckeyes also don\u2019t outwardly look very dangerous. Losses to opponents Michigan has bested, such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/despite-miscues-from-both-sides-michigan-rises-above-bowling-green-9-6\/\">Bowling Green<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/defense-gives-breathing-room-for-michigan-to-clinch-washington-series-with-4-3-walkoff-win\/\">Washington<\/a>, give Ohio State a far less impressive resume than the Wolverines \u2014 until its series with Nebraska, that is.<\/p>\n<p>Against the team that bested Michigan in a series \u2014 one of which was a run-rule defeat \u2014 the Buckeyes completely <a href=\"https:\/\/ohiostatebuckeyes.com\/news\/2026\/5\/3\/baseball-buckeyes-sweep-nebraska-for-first-time-in-program-history\">swept<\/a> the Cornhuskers, holding them to just five total runs over the entire weekend. Ohio State also embodied the slugging the Wolverines faced in their defeats, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/michigan-loses-sight-of-nebraska-in-homer-fueled-9-5-loss\/\">Nebraska<\/a> itself, as the Buckeyes launched 12 extra-base hits over the series. As of April 4, Ohio State has three batters in the Top 50 of the Big Ten, the same amount as Michigan, a sign of the two teams equal firepower.<\/p>\n<p>Blossoming under coach <a href=\"https:\/\/d1baseball.com\/stories\/granger-angle-ohio-state-makes-surge-in-year-two-of-haire-era\/\">Justin Haire<\/a>, Ohio State has leveled up into a potential dark horse team in the Big Ten \u2014 a team that would potentially spoil the Wolverines\u2019 NCAA postseason hopes if the series goes badly for Michigan.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe want to be ready for conference play and ultimately put our RPI and our team in the best position for a postseason finish,\u201d Smith said April 7.<\/p>\n<p>To prepare for a tournament push, the Wolverines will likely have to win out their remaining <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/michigan-seeking-to-banish-first-team-out-label-with-statement-maryland-series\/\">series<\/a>. With chances for RPI-boosting Q1 wins escaping them, such as Tuesday\u2019s game against Xavier being cancelled, the catalyst to extending Michigan\u2019s season lies in these remaining weekends. And while the Wolverines have secured themselves on a six-series win streak, their\u00a0 upcoming opponents find themselves heating up as well.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\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>As of Monday, the Michigan baseball team ranked No. 42 in RPI, a feat pulled off after following through on an away-series sweep of Maryland. But while it snowballs into a more potent player in the NCAA postseason, its remaining regular season opponents have similarly grown. Hoping to lock in an NCAA tournament berth, the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[4630,2736,4629,222,1207,993,623],"class_list":{"0":"post-5061","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-chances","9":"tag-daunting","10":"tag-increasingly","11":"tag-michigan","12":"tag-postseason","13":"tag-remaining","14":"tag-series"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061","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=5061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5063,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5061\/revisions\/5063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}