#17 M baseball now 6-0 after sweep of The Citadel

Submitted by Alton on February 24th, 2019 at 2:19 PM

The #17-ranked Michigan baseball team went to Charleston, S.C., this weekend and came home with a 3-game sweep of The Citadel.

The top performance for Michigan was the Friday win by pitcher Tommy Henry, a Junior from Portage Northern HS.  Henry pitched a complete game 1-hitter, faced the minimum 27 batters (after the single hitter was erased on a caught stealing), and struck out 13.  The amazing thing is that he did this all with only 88 pitches.

After the 2-0 win on Friday, Michigan's bats took over for a comfortable 9-1 win on Saturday.  Junior College transfer Jordan Brewer was 3-for-4 with a home run and a stolen base.  Brewer probably had Michigan's best weekend at the plate, going 5-for-11 with a double, a home run, and 4 stolen bases.  He's hitting in the #3 spot and seems to have a great combination of speed and power.  He has seen action at 1B, CF and RF so far this season.

On Sunday, Michigan overcame a 2-0 deficit to win, 6-3.  Promising Freshman Willie Weiss got 2.2 innings of work without allowing a hit and striking out 4, but was a little wild with 3 walks.  Weiss will probably be the #4 starter as Michigan moves into a busier segment of the schedule.

Michigan's defense was much improved this weekend, with only 1 error after making 6 errors in the 3 games last weekend.

Michigan's schedule takes a much more difficult turn this next weekend when they start an 8-game spring break trip to California.  First up is a 3-game set with Cal State Northridge.  If Michigan can start with a series win, and come back to Michigan with a 4-4 record or better over those 8 games, it will be a very good sign in what looks to be a somewhat down year in the Big Ten--Illinois is the only other B1G team putting up good results so far.

Baseball/Softball

Wendyk5

February 24th, 2019 at 2:52 PM ^

I don't follow M baseball closely but I noticed Tommy Henry's stats this week. Is this kid always this good? 

Also, my son's going to play in his first college game this weekend. Go college baseball!

Joined: 11/20/2008

MGoPoints: 67736

Alton

February 24th, 2019 at 3:42 PM ^

Henry has always shown the potential to be a very good pitcher.  He has very good control with a low opponent's batting average (.235 last year).  He was 7-3 with a 3.09 ERA last season as the #1 starter, and was second-team all-conference.

We will know a lot more in a couple of weeks whether he can keep up his amazing performance from his first 2 starts.  22 strikeouts and only 8 baserunners allowed in his first 15 innings is a pretty solid beginning for the season, though.

Joined: 07/05/2008

MGoPoints: 13300

Alton

February 24th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^

Pretty crazy, right?  With 13 strikeouts, that's at least 39 pitches, and another 14 pitches to get the other 14 outs, plus the 1 pitch that went for a single, that accounts for 54 of those 88 pitches right there!

When I saw the stat line (I was at the OSU hockey game, so I wasn't following the baseball game), my first thought was why in the world Michigan was working a starter for 9 innings in February.  That's too much too soon, I was thinking.  But 88 pitches?  Yeah, no problem.

Joined: 07/05/2008

MGoPoints: 13300

Ty Butterfield

February 24th, 2019 at 11:43 PM ^

Time to jump on the baseball bandwagon. Hopefully some of the games are on BTN, or at least the BTN app. 

Joined: 09/07/2009

MGoPoints: -81685