baseball: M 8 ND 2
The Michigan baseball team continues to roll and to allow very few runs, as they cruised past Notre Dame today. James Bourque allowed just 1 hit and 2 walks over 7.2 innings, and struck out 8 Irishmen. Kevin White had 4 hits and Cole Martin 3, and Zach Zott scored 3 runs. This was the team's 10th straight win and 13th straight game allowing 3 runs or less.
Too bad Bourque couldn't complete the no-no, but that is still a fantastic performance against a good baseball team. Getting the season sweep over Notre Dame is great, and the fact that they are ranked just makes it that much sweeter!
Just a small correction, Notre Dame had been ranked but fell out of the polls after being swept last weekend by Pittsburgh. They've now lost 6 straight.
I believe Michigan's 10-game streak is its longest since a 12-gamer in 2008. Michigan's notes for the last game said the team won 16 straight in 2008, but looking at the results for that season I'm not seeing it. (After digging into this a bit more, it appears there's an error in Michigan's record book.)
The game tomorrow against Northwestern at 6:05 pm is being broadcast on BTN.com.
And the BTN has added a Michigan game to its schedule:
TIME CHANGE: Michigan's game at Indiana on Saturday, April 27 will start at 4:30 p.m. and will be televised on BTN.
— Michigan Baseball (@umichbaseball) April 16, 2013
MICH-again! 10 straight wins.
Next up is a road series with northwestern including a Saturday game at Wrigley Field.
Why is BTN not showing the game at Wrigley? I wish they had a regional BTN channel that showed more Michigan sports live. I know hockey will have online streaming but its not the same as watching in HD.
Michigan has an ERA of 1.20 over its last 10 games. Michigan's staff ERA was over 5.00 for 2 of the last 3 years, and so far this year it is 2.98--that's 2 runs a game improvement in the pitching staff just this year. Notre Dame's 2 meaningless runs in the 9th inning broke an incredible string of 41.3 innings for the bullpen without giving up a run.
I don't know for certain, but I would guess that much of the credit for this turnaround needs to go to Sean Kenny, an Ann Arbor native who is in his first season as Michigan's pitching coach.
41.3 innings? So 42 innings? Or did you mean 41.2?
Yes, I know the convention for 1/3 of an inning is ".1" and 2/3 of an inning is ".2". I just don't like it. I meant 41 1/3 innings. I thought it was clear, but obviously not. My apologies.
I can't go back and correct it now, but any traditionalists should feel free mentally correct "41.3 innings" to "41.1 innings."
OK, I see what you did now. I agree that writing 4.1 for "four and a third" seems wrong, but that's just how it's written, and to deviate from that is confusing. I just assumed it was a typo and you hit the 3 instead of the 2.
Fair enough, but it's not like I'm the only one ever to write innings pitched like that. Check out, for example, the spring stats next to this article in the Michigan Daily in 1984:
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2706&dat=19840329&id=vwhKAAAAIBAJ…
It seems like the ".3" and ".7" convention was once more common than it is now, and has almost but not completely disappeared in favor of the ".1" and ".2". I guess I will just be old fashioned, like people who still use the word "telephone."
I never realized that was the norm, but I wasn't reading the newspaper a whole lot yet in 1984.
So I guess whenever you write on a sports blog in 1984, you can use your old way. Maybe you can do it on your "telephone," whatever that is. Probably doesn't even have 4G.
Getting 7.2 out of Bourque was important for the rest of the arms going into this stretch, also getting Lakatos to close it out keeps Clark and Cronenworth a little more rested.
Best part of this win streak is that we're getting production from guys not named O'Neill and Biondi. Those guys will be our best players by season's end, but they're not the only reason we're winning right now.
that we are second in the Big Ten behind Minnesota! Not bad for the new manager in his second season. . .