{"id":746,"date":"2025-04-06T18:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T18:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/06\/despite-tough-weekend-against-michigan-state-michigan-isnt-worried-about-lauren-derkowski\/"},"modified":"2025-04-06T18:00:17","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T18:00:17","slug":"despite-tough-weekend-against-michigan-state-michigan-isnt-worried-about-lauren-derkowski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/06\/despite-tough-weekend-against-michigan-state-michigan-isnt-worried-about-lauren-derkowski\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite tough weekend against Michigan State, Michigan isn&#8217;t worried about Lauren Derkowski"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Last weekend against Michigan State, senior right-hander Lauren Derkowski had an uncommonly rough series.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Friday, Derkowski allowed six hits and four runs in the Michigan softball team\u2019s first loss to Michigan State in more than seven years. In the second game on Saturday, things worsened when she made it just three innings before being pulled. In those innings, she walked four batters, allowed two hits and four runs and hit one batter with a pitch. The performance was one of her worst of the season, with a game ERA of 9.33.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Against the Spartans, Derkowski struggled to find the zone, attempting to line the margins of the box, but was often unable to do so. Michigan State\u2019s batters worked her to full count after full count, wearing her down over the course of the weekend. The Spartans were making solid contact with her pitches, ultimately resulting in a grand slam from Kaelin Cash that would end Derkowski\u2019s weekend. But this wasn\u2019t just a case of a tough few games \u2014 it was an opposing team coming in with a game plan to shut down an elite pitcher they\u2019ve faced for four years and executing that plan to perfection.<\/p>\n<p>So the Wolverines aren\u2019t taking last weekend as a sign that Derkowski isn\u2019t up to the task in her final season. Michigan coach Bonnie Tholl feels she\u2019s still just as elite as she ever was.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cWhen you pitch against a team for four years, there\u2019s so much scouting information out there,\u201d Tholl said on Saturday. \u201cIt\u2019s really difficult for juniors or seniors in our league to be super successful, because teams have seen her for three and a half years. So I don\u2019t think it was her best weekend, for sure, but you have to give Michigan State some credit for really executing whatever their game plan was.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Even in defeat, Derkowski is still an exceptional pitcher. She struck out eight batters in Friday\u2019s loss to Michigan State, and one of the runs was unearned due to a fielding error. And even after a terrible outing by her high standards, Derkowski\u2019s season ERA still did not rise above 1.95. She remains elite, among the <a href=\"https:\/\/d1softball.com\/conference\/big-ten-conference\/2025\/statistics\/\">top-10 pitchers<\/a> in the Big Ten.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not just Derkowski in Michigan\u2019s bullpen, either. Sophomore right-hander Erin Hoehn has recovered from a poor start and is maintaining a solid 2.36 ERA. She was stellar in relief of Derkowski in the Michigan State series despite giving up four runs, including two home runs. But it is still the senior captain\u2019s circle, and will likely remain that way until she graduates.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not worried at all, personally, because Derk is Derk,\u201d junior infielder Indiana Langford said on Tuesday. \u201cShe\u2019s gonna shut teams down at the end of the day, she\u2019s gonna go out there and do her thing. And anytime she\u2019s on the mound, I know we have a chance at winning every single game.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The upcoming matchup against Oregon will provide Derkowski an opportunity to rebound after last weekend. But even if her numbers suffer, Michigan still won\u2019t be worried about Lauren Derkowski. The circle is firmly hers in the Wolverines\u2019 eyes.\u00a0<\/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>Last weekend against Michigan State, senior right-hander Lauren Derkowski had an uncommonly rough series.\u00a0 On Friday, Derkowski allowed six hits and four runs in the Michigan softball team\u2019s first loss to Michigan State in more than seven years. In the second game on Saturday, things worsened when she made it just three innings before being [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[787,278,266,222,361,784,785,786],"class_list":{"0":"post-746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-derkowski","9":"tag-isnt","10":"tag-lauren","11":"tag-michigan","12":"tag-state","13":"tag-tough","14":"tag-weekend","15":"tag-worried"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746","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=746"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":748,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746\/revisions\/748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}