{"id":5216,"date":"2026-05-20T14:49:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:49:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/20\/cade-montgomery-shines-in-starting-role-at-big-ten-tournament\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T14:49:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:49:09","slug":"cade-montgomery-shines-in-starting-role-at-big-ten-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/20\/cade-montgomery-shines-in-starting-role-at-big-ten-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Cade Montgomery shines in starting role at Big Ten Tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>OMAHA, Neb. \u2014 After giving up 10 runs in just three innings against No. 1 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/michigan-baseball-loss-to-ucla\/\">UCLA<\/a>, junior right-hander Cade Montgomery looked like he\u2019d played his way out of the Michigan baseball team\u2019s weekend rotation.<\/p>\n<p>He rebounded from the debacle five days later with a shutout three innings against Michigan State March 18 \u2014 a game that proved to be Montgomery\u2019s final start of the regular season.<\/p>\n<p>But when Wolverines coach Tracy Smith handed him the helm for Tuesday\u2019s Big Ten Tournament opener against Rutgers, Montgomery didn\u2019t disappoint.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re going to have to play a lot of games if you\u2019re going to win the championship, and save the pen,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe talked about it this morning as a team. There\u2019s going to have to be guys step up and do some really cool and unique things, and he certainly did that today. He gives us a fighting chance.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Offered an opportunity to reclaim his starting role in a tournament format, Montgomery went the distance. He threw a complete-game shutout, pitching his longest outing in a Michigan uniform with all seven innings of the Wolverines\u2019 10-0 run-rule win over the Scarlet Knights.<\/p>\n<p>Montgomery\u2019s gem wasn\u2019t just a feat of longevity. He struck out six Rutgers batters and gave up only a single hit, while allowing a meager four Scarlet Knights to reach base. In a high-pressure environment, Montgomery commanded the strike zone and singlehandedly prevented Rutgers\u2019 lineup from finding a way back into the game.<\/p>\n<p>The pitcher who carved up the Scarlet Knights Tuesday looked a far cry from the one who\u2019d been dismantled by the Bruins a few months ago. Rutgers\u2019 offense isn\u2019t as potent as the Bruins\u2019, but Montgomery proved he can thrive in whatever situation the Wolverines place him in.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI love his mentality, because he\u2019s even, he\u2019s cool,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThat\u2019s the guy you want on the mound, because \u2026 they\u2019re going to have to beat him. He\u2019s not going to beat himself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even when Montgomery didn\u2019t start for the Wolverines, he still found a way to make an impact with his knack for performing in high-leverage situations. He dazzled as a closer down the stretch, notching six saves in his last eight appearances before the tournament \u2014 including clutch shutdowns in Michigan\u2019s back-to-back wins over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/michigan-sticks-to-its-guns-rallies-past-minnesota-for-seventh-straight-series-win\/\">Minnesota<\/a>.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>On Tuesday, Montgomery applied the mentality he uses as a closer to his stint as a starter \u2014 and it ended up being a driving force behind his stellar showing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor me, it was just being able to stack some good outings coming out of the bullpen and using that mindset inning to inning in the start,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cJust taking it one inning at a time and treating each inning like a closer opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And when asked if he was ready to pitch the final two innings should he have needed to, Montgomery smiled and replied with just two words:\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor sure.\u201d<\/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>OMAHA, Neb. \u2014 After giving up 10 runs in just three innings against No. 1 UCLA, junior right-hander Cade Montgomery looked like he\u2019d played his way out of the Michigan baseball team\u2019s weekend rotation. He rebounded from the debacle five days later with a shutout three innings against Michigan State March 18 \u2014 a game [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[515,4734,4735,707,1438,1104,259,421],"class_list":{"0":"post-5216","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-big","9":"tag-cade","10":"tag-montgomery","11":"tag-role","12":"tag-shines","13":"tag-starting","14":"tag-ten","15":"tag-tournament"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216","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=5216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5218,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5216\/revisions\/5218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}