Preview: Western Michigan, Poll Watch
| Michigan (27-15) | @ | Western Michigan (10-32) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday 3:05pm ET, Kalamazoo, MI | ||||
| Matt Miller (1-2, 5.98 ERA) | vs | Eric Heckaman (0-7, 8.65ERA) | ||
| Stats | ||||
| Notes: 73-64 All Time (WMU used to be really good back in the 50s), Last year's home-and-home was a 2-0 Michigan sweep by score 20-1 and 6-0. |
Michigan travels to coach Rich Maloney's old stomping ground today to face off with the Western Michigan Broncos. The Broncos are one of the worst teams in D1 baseball, #267 in Boyd's Pseudo-RPI. Despite that, they do have a mid-week win over Michigan State and a series win over a decent Miami (NTM) team.
Eric Heckaman gets the start for the Broncos for the 10th time this season, which leads the team. In his 51 innings pitched, the righty has given up 75 hits for an opponent batting average of .335. He has just 31 strikeouts but also has 20 walks. He hasn't given up a ton of extra base hits (13 doubles and 5 homers), and he also seems a bit wild with 7 HBP and 4 wild pitches.
At the plate, WMU is lead by Chris Lewis. Lewis leads the team in batting average (.370), on base percentage (.440), slugging percentage (.543), and RBI (34). Ryan McMillan is the only other major threat in the lineup batting .341 and slugging .541. His 24 RBI is second only to Lewis.
After that, there is a lot of meh. Michigan should be able to handle these guys easily, getting an easy win and probably dropping 3 spots in the RPI while their at it. WMU is just that bad.
Weather looks to be perfect with winds blowing straight out to right center at 15 to 20 mph.
Polls and Bubble Watch after the jump:
Polls & Bubble Watch
It's been way too long since I've been able to include one of these type sections…
Michigan made it into it's first poll of the year, being listed in the "Others Receiving Votes" of the National College Baseball Writers Association Poll. They are listed alphabetically, but if they were listed by total votes, I'm about 98% sure we'd be listed in a tie for last.
Michigan made it into two different NCAA Regional Projections today. SEBaseball (Rivals' South East Baseball) puts Michigan as a #3 seed at UCONN.
Norwich Regional
Host: Connecticut
1. Connecticut (Big East Automatic) 35-9 #24
4. Columbia (Ivy Automatic) 25-19 #1252. Virginia Tech (ACC at large) 32-14 #23
3. Michigan (Big 10 Automatic) 27-15 #57
That's an intriguing bracket as Virginia Tech is decent in the ACC, capable of knocking off giants, but they have had their share of consistency issues this year. UCONN is probably the most underrated team in the NCAA this year. They get little to no respect being in the Big East. They are extremely dangerous.
The second projection was by D1Baseball.com's Jeremy Mills contributing for ESPN. He has Michigan projected to head to Conway, SC in the Coastal Carolina regional as a 4 seed.
Conway Regional
No. 7 Coastal Carolina
Clemson
Alabama
Michigan
That regional would be death. Not only would Michigan have to face a potential filled, underachieving Alabama in the first round, but the other two teams are no slouch either. Coastal Carolina has been around the top 10 all year in RPI. At least if we were to face them again, we'd hopefully be at full health, not that our pitching is half of what it was 5 weeks ago.
Clemson baseball is like Clemson football/basketball. They're filled with talent but have an aversion to being great. Every time they get recognized for good play, they somehow collapse.
That second one is indeed Death.
I choose life!
The errors!! If we lose to WMU, I will be very disappointed indeed.
Second homer of the game for him. Still hating the errors, but not as concerned as when we were down 3-1.
...As we would be totally embarrassed without him this game. Come on...4 hits and 2 of them by Duf. This team should no way be able to play with us.
Poll Watch...yikes. Put that away, it's all fun and games until someone get poked in the eye.
It pains me that I have no audio, not that I can listen in the library anyway. I'd get way too worked up about this.
We have an awesome catcher coming in. TWO ERRORS for Coley Crank so far. ARGH!
We've got a few possibilities, including one that will be a freshman next year. Good chance we see them play a la Berset's freshman year. Crank will probably DH quite a it until he finds his defensive prowess. So much for that massive improvement that supposedly happened over the summer. Hopefully he can step it up this year.
It's 9-8 and a man on first and second. This is not over.
Partially why I hate that brand of stat tracker. Summary mode put up a zero as if it were over. That and there's too much going on and not enough information.
It does appear to be over now.
Fortunately, we can close it and look upon it no more.
says that game sucked big time. Next please, I want to forget this one asap
Michigan led by two headed into the ninth and held onto for a 9-8 win over Western Michigan Tuesday at Robert J. Bobb Stadium. Jack Scanlon and Kyle Galbraith homered for the Broncos in the loss.
Michael Dufek homered twice for the Wolverines, hitting a solo home run in the second and a grand slam in the fourth. Western Michigan had led 3-1 through three innings.
Senior first baseman Mike Dufek (Scottsdale, Ariz./Desert Mountain) hit a solo home run in the second inning and a grand slam in the fourth to help push the University of Michigan baseball team to a 9-8 victory at Western Michigan on Tuesday afternoon (May 4) on Hyames Field at Robert J. Bobb Stadium.
Dufek paced the Wolverines during a 2-for-4 day with his home runs and five runs batted in. Fifth-year senior rightfielder Nick Urban (Whitehall, Mich./Whitehall) was 2-for-4 with a pair of stolen bases and two runs batted in.
Junior pitcher Kolby Wood (Eau Claire, Mich./Berrien Springs) earned the victory out of the bullpen, striking out two while allowing three hits in three innings of work. Junior pitcher Matt Gerbe (Shelby Township, Mich./Eisenhower) picked up his second save of the season, tossing the final two innings.
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