Michigan Baseball defeats Florida Gulf Coast 6-4

Submitted by ThadMattasagoblin on

Michigan improves to 3-8-1 on the season in this murderers row nonconference schedule with a win in Fort Meyers. Tomorrow Michigan plays UCF.

In reply to by el522351

Raoul

March 5th, 2014 at 12:36 PM ^

They've lost several very close games (including three in extra innings), and there have been other games where the pitching has been decent but the bats were silent—sometimes because of dominating pitching performances by an opponent, other times not. Keep in mind that Bakich is playing a ton of freshmen, so this sort of start wasn't entirely unexpected.

Overall, the starting pitching has looked pretty solid. The bullpen failed to hold some leads, and that's led to some losses. I'm sure Bakich won't use this as an excuse, but injuries have played a factor. The team has lost junior Matt Ogden for the season because of an elbow injury. He was stellar out the bullpen last season, picking up eight wins in 21 appearances, with a 2.28 ERA in 55 1/3 innings. His injury leaves a gaping hole. Michigan's closer, Jacob Cronenworth, had not pitched until last weekend as he was still recovering from off-season labrum surgery, so that didn't help matters in the earlier games. Getting him back on the mound is huge, and he quickly picked up a win and a save in his first two relief efforts.

Another player who could solidify the bullpen is Jackson Lamb, but he "tweaked" his back in the first game of the Houston series a couple weeks ago and has played only sparingly since. He had been expected to be a two-way player but so far hasn't made an appearance on the mound. Bakich said this morning on WTKA (podcast) that Lamb is about 80 percent recovered and will be brought back slowly. Lamb got off to a hot start at the plate, so getting him back in the lineup could certainly help the offense—and perhaps he'll shore up the bullpen as well.