{"id":5243,"date":"2026-05-22T07:49:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T07:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/the-approach-that-kept-shane-brinham-in-the-zone-as-michigan-outdueled-ohio-state\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T07:49:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T07:49:28","slug":"the-approach-that-kept-shane-brinham-in-the-zone-as-michigan-outdueled-ohio-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/the-approach-that-kept-shane-brinham-in-the-zone-as-michigan-outdueled-ohio-state\/","title":{"rendered":"The approach that kept Shane Brinham in the zone as Michigan outdueled Ohio State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Freshman left-hander Shane Brinham threw a complete-game <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/no-7-seed-michigan-gets-over-the-hump-shuts-out-no-6-seed-ohio-state-3-0-to-advance-to-big-ten-tournament-quarterfinals\/\">gem<\/a> to shut out No. 6 seed Ohio State and bring No. 7 seed Michigan to the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals. But for much of the game, the Buckeyes\u2019 pitching staff stanched the flow of runs to round out the standoff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Right-hander Gavin Kuzniewski started on the mound for Ohio State and immediately began taking advantage of the Wolverines\u2019 early contact, only delivering ten pitches in the first inning. Kuzniewski\u2019s breaking ball and sweeper drew weak contact on the edge of the zone, especially for Michigan\u2019s five left-handed hitters. The strategy led to groundouts and flyouts, but also directly struck out hitters at the plate. In the second inning, junior first baseman Matt Ossenfort became the first direct victim of Kuzniewski\u2019s command of the zone after chasing a low pitch and striking out swinging.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When Kuzniewski\u2019s control faltered, Michigan profited. Facing the top of the Wolverines\u2019 lineup, Kuzniewski walked two consecutive batters and hit another. With the bases loaded, Kuzniewski allowed his only hit of the game \u2014 a two-RBI single from redshirt sophomore catcher Noah <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/noah-millers-offensive-breakout\/\">Miller<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIt\u2019s about executing your pitches and just being efficient,\u201d Michigan coach Tracy Smith said. \u201cTonight, we did a little bit better than they did, which gives us a chance to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Meanwhile, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/shane-brinham-named-national-pitcher-of-the-week-for-masterclass-against-oregon\/\">Brinham<\/a> systematically declawed the most dangerous stretches of the Buckeyes lineup. He logged five strikeouts by the time he reached the bottom of the Ohio State order at the end of the second inning, and lured each into a similar trap that Kuzniewski had created for the Wolverines. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/shane-brinham-spins-a-gem-for-michigan-against-no-15-oregon\/\">Brinham<\/a> opted to lean on his slider, especially during the three lefty-lefty matchups with the Buckeyes. Often, the slider would bring even Ohio State\u2019s most powerful left-handed sluggers \u2014 like shortstop Henry Kaczmar and first baseman Dane <a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/sports\/baseball\/michigan-mound-dismantled-by-ohio-state-slugger-dane-harvey-in-13-2-run-rule-loss\/\">Harvey<\/a> \u2014 chasing out of the zone. To seal the strikeout, Brinham closed with a fastball spotted high in the zone.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI was timing my fastball and my slider,\u201d Brinham said. \u201cThey weren\u2019t really hitting my fastball, because my slider was working really well, too. Having those two was super helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For both Harvey and Buckeyes second baseman Lee Ellis, who tend to hit when served fastballs, Brinham\u2019s approach could\u2019ve had unintended benefits. But both went hitless. Brinham only lost control of his timing briefly early on in the game from the second to fourth innings, flying open and costing him accuracy. Still, the mechanical blip only resulted in three walks total in all nine innings \u2014 fewer than Kuzniewski gave up in 7.2 innings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Brinham stayed strong on the mound and struck out the side in the bottom of the eighth, Kuzniewski bowed out in favor of right-hander Ryan Zamora in the same inning. Zamora inherited runners on first and second, and after allowing a single for an unearned run, he stayed on Kuzniewski\u2019s pattern of breaking balls. Although Michigan led by three runs, it still chased potential hits, and Zamora capitalized to strike out all four Wolverines hitters remaining.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At 110 pitches entering the bottom of the ninth, Brinham showed few signs of wavering. While he allowed a single and produced just one strikeout, he stayed true to the timing of his slider to yield an easy flyout and popup for Michigan\u2019s fielders. For nine innings, Ohio State couldn\u2019t consistently crack the code to Brinham\u2019s pitches.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c(Brinham) has a great fastball, he has a great curveball, great slider, great changeup,\u201d Miller said. \u201cThat\u2019s four-plus pitches. Just throw it in the zone, make them beat you, because they\u2019re not going to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Wolverines and Buckeyes engaged in a masterclass on the mound with tournament elimination on the line. Brinham and Kuzniewski employed parallel approaches to maximize strikeouts. For Brinham, that meant making the most of matchups within the lineup. Kuzniewski, and later Zamora, exploited Michigan\u2019s early-contact approach at the plate. But in the highest-stakes pitcher\u2019s duel of the season, Brinham stayed in control of the zone for all nine innings to keep Michigan ahead.\u00a0<\/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>Freshman left-hander Shane Brinham threw a complete-game gem to shut out No. 6 seed Ohio State and bring No. 7 seed Michigan to the Big Ten Tournament quarterfinals. But for much of the game, the Buckeyes\u2019 pitching staff stanched the flow of runs to round out the standoff. Right-hander Gavin Kuzniewski started on the mound [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5244,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2179,4754,222,1023,4755,4753,361,3105],"class_list":{"0":"post-5243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-approach","9":"tag-brinham","10":"tag-michigan","11":"tag-ohio","12":"tag-outdueled","13":"tag-shane","14":"tag-state","15":"tag-zone"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5243","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=5243"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5245,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5243\/revisions\/5245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}