6/17/2019 – Michigan 2, Florida State 0 – 48-20, 2-0 CWS

Somewhere out there is a dude who doesn't know anything about basketball but turned on the Michael Jordan flu game. Afterwards he said "huh, that's a thing." Years later he flicked on the World Cup once, one time, and saw Germany dismantle Brazil 7-1, in Brazil. This was similarly intriguing even without any context. He was in Japan in 1990 and bought a ticket to a boxing match on a whim. Ten years later he was trying to turn on Star Search and caught the tail end of a football game. He is a man who has seen some things.

Yesterday he flipped ESPN on at 7, because he didn't have anything better to do. And he felt exactly like I did. We were both visitors to another sport, seeing some things. The thing we saw was Tommy Henry producing the single most bad-ass high-leverage pitching performance in program history.

I make this assertion with the same amount of baseball knowledge your average lemur or bowling ball has, but I am not wrong. Even the bowling ball knows that a 100 pitch, 10 K complete game shutout is dope, and can check Michigan's previous College World Series outings in about 30 seconds.

Even the lemur can begin to grasp why people spend a lot of time on baseball when the most viscerally satisfying thing about the sport keeps happening. There's a majesty to a pitch that scythes across the strike zone and then takes an abrupt turn, as if piloted by a kamikaze ant, when it reaches the batter.

This was virtually every Henry pitch. I specifically remember one ball of the variety where taking is not even a decision, because it was the only one. Everything else was either painting the corners of the strike zone or missing productively. Only two batters even got to three-ball counts. On most balls I groaned unproductively because they were close enough to maybe get a call. Just about every pitch that got the strike-zone box treatment intersected with the box. They kept calling this "the black" for reasons that were obscure to me. But yeah sure we'll go with Tommy Henry is pitching in The Black. It was downright occult.

Ace gif'd FSU's final out, a three-pitch strikeout on which JC Flowers could have swung a cricket bat without it making a bit of difference:

upon further review, tommy henry's final few pitches last night were indeed filthy pic.twitter.com/0F0WAO1B9I

— Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) June 18, 2019

I had a roommate once who was from New York and only turned on baseball when the Yankees were in the World Series, so I would sit down and silently root against the Yankees. The only pleasurable thing about the Yankees was Mariano Rivera, whose pitches had a magnetic attraction to the handle of a baseball bat. Even though I wanted the Yankees to lose, there was still a satisfaction watching the Grim Reaper harvest saves.

Today there are Florida State fans who know this feeling. They lost, but I mean look at that. Just look at it. It was an honor to be disemboweled so gracefully. Truly a privel—aaaaaaargh. [/florps into dirt]

[After the JUMP: what now! The slide!]

OKAY SO WHAT NOW

Michigan gets four days off and will get two cracks at the winner of Texas Tech-FSU, with the first game Friday at 2 PM Eastern. If necessary they'll play a winner-take-all game on Saturday.

Then there's a day off before a best two-out-of-three final. The short gap there means winning the Friday game is a big deal. If they do that their likely rotation is their big three starters on full rest. Take it to Saturday by pitching Kauffman and Henry and even if they don't use Criswell out of the bullpen that would probably look like:

• Fresh Criswell
• Kauffman on three days rest
• Henry on three days rest

Not the worst thing in the world but also not the best, and they'd probably use Criswell out of the bullpen at some point if they do get extended to Saturday.

BULLETS

The slide. In addition to a legendary pitching performance, a legendary GIF:

safe! pic.twitter.com/NNufGAqPeU

— Ace Anbender (@AceAnbender) June 18, 2019

I almost want the football team to get into a 14-point hole against Northwestern and dig their way out with an assortment of improbable garbage so I can deploy that.

Pretty much. Catcher Joe Donovan:

“The discipline to keep the balls low in the zone, to not miss,” sophomore catcher Joe Donovan said of what has made Henry so successful in the postseason. “If he does have a miss, the next pitch was — I think he shook me off after a hung breaking ball, and the next one was one of the dirtiest ones I've ever caught from him.

“That's him in a nutshell is keeping the ball low in the zone, pounding it, discipline, taking breaths, the whole nine yards on it, and that's been what we've seen from him this entire time.”

Analytics FTW. Michigan appears to make heavy use out of Nerd Stuff That's Ruining Baseball™, what with their frequent shifting. A couple of balls that went right up the middle turned into outs because of Michigan's positioning, in particular one where Henry had to dodge a ball that went right at Ako Thomas. The outfield shifts didn't pay off in outs but were further evidence.

So was Michigan's imperative to jump on first-pitch fastballs early, which led to the winning run on the second pitch of the game:

NO DOUBTER FOR FRANKLIN!

Jesse Franklin absolutely CRUSHES this ball to give the Wolverines an early lead. #CWS | @umichbaseball pic.twitter.com/8verIH96uC

— NCAA Baseball (@NCAACWS) June 17, 2019

In addition to the run that planted the seeds for Van Eyck's early exit, as he started throwing off-speed stuff early in at bats and ended up with an elevated pitch count. Not that it did Michigan any good to get him off the diamond; FSU's bullpen just mowed Michigan down. But it was a good idea!

Finally: Michigan has busted sign stealing by giving everyone a card with their various calls on it that changes every game. Someone nerf Pat Fitzgerald with this tactic please.

"No doubles." You probably heard the color guy in the first game complaining about Michigan's outfielders playing super deep, which they did again a couple times against FSU. That's a choice, too, asking opponents to string together slightly easier singles against their aces if they want to score. So far, so good. If that Texas Tech guy with one home run on the season hadn't fluked his way into a moonshot HR on a ball well out of the zone Michigan would have given up one run in two games.

1:1 ratio. Ako Thomas's first name has one syllable for every letter in it. This is very important.

Also won: the in-game interview. Erik Bakich crushed this interview about as hard as Franklin crushed the above pitch:

How cool is this? @umichbaseball head coach Erik Bakich on his recruiting philosophy: "We think our roster should look like the United States of America."

Powerful stuff! (Via @espn) pic.twitter.com/Eh25zhem43

— Zach Harig (@FOX17Zach) June 18, 2019

In addition to being just basically good, it's also a way for Michigan to find talent that southern powerhouses overlook.

The Big 3. Alex put together a spreadsheet of their tourney performances:

A WHIP of exactly 1.0 is good, right? Please do not answer this in the comments it is a rhetorical question.