clark elliott

A memorable year for some right reasons, but one very wrong one [Marc-Gregor Campredon]
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Baseball Roundup Is Sent To The Offseason By Replays
Alex.Drain • June 7, 2022 • 1:11pm

The good news from the weekend is that Michigan Baseball managed to captivate the entire UofM fanbase in a way that they haven't since late June 2019. The bad news is that it ended like the 2016 Ohio State game, with a controversial (non)use of replay sending the Maize & Blue faithful to scour LinkedIn pages to find out the past of the official who hurt us so we could add it to the grand conspiracy folder. It was a busy weekend down in Louisville, KY, and the events of yesterday afternoon ended the 2022 season for Michigan Baseball, which means it's time for the post-season column. I'm going to give you all what you want and will talk plenty about The Review, but we'll also then turn attention to the 2023 season and the future of the program later on: 

 

Recapping Louisville 

Michigan faced Oregon in the first game of the regional on Friday night and they got off to a good start, taking a 3-0 lead through three innings thanks to a Jimmy Obertop HR. Connor O'Halloran had a decent start, but let the Ducks tie it at 3, before Michigan surged back ahead 6-3 on another Obertop longball. Yet again the Ducks answered, this time off Michigan's Chase Allen in the seventh, but a Matt Frey HR in the eighth put Michigan back up. This time, it was for good. Cam Weston finished it off with a two inning save, and the Wolverines won 8-6. 

On Saturday, Michigan played their first of what would be three games against Louisville. They went to Walker Cleveland as the opener, and he got only four outs and ceded a run. Noah Rennard was admirable in mop-up duty, and he would give way to Jacob Denner. The Wolverine bats faced Cardinal ace Jared Poland and after looking silly through eight batters, they broke through in style, battering Poland for seven runs (six earned) in 4.2 IP. Clark Elliott and Joe Stewart both went deep, and then Joey Velazquez and Riley Bertram RBI singles helped spike the Michigan lead. It was 7-2 after five, and the combination of Denner, Allen, and Weston got the game to the finish line, pitching through jams most of the afternoon, but the Wolverines hung on to win 7-3.  

That put Michigan into the Regional Final on Sunday, where they awaited their opponent. Louisville beat Oregon in a high-scoring affair, and that set up a rematch. With many of their best arms taxed after throwing plenty of pitches the preceding couple of days, the Wolverines had to rely on the reserve options. If you have read any of my preceding baseball columns, you had a pretty good feeling of how this one was gonna go from the jump. Michigan does not have the pitching depth to keep an offense like Louisville's in check without their best guys, and the bats mailed it in as well. The result was NSFW, a 20-1 final score, to push the regional to a winner-take-all Game 7 yesterday. 

[Paul Sherman]

The two teams met again and it got off to a good start, with Michigan notching two in the top of the first off hits from Elliott, Stewart, and Frey. Things went south pretty quickly, though, as O'Halloran took the bump for the bottom of the first. It was a decision that was a bit confusing to me, given that O'Halloran had thrown 93 pitches on Friday and had just two days of rest in between. He didn't look as sharp, allowing the first two baserunners to reach, but then did a good job to get the next two outs. With two on and two out and a 3-2 count, Levi Usher laced a double to right to plate a pair. That began a disastrous series of events, as the next seven hitters would reach(!). A single, HBP, single HBP, single, walk, and error. That debacle led to O'Halloran being yanked, and Allen entering to finish the frame. It was 7-2 L'Ville after one. 

Michigan would get one run back on a Frey HR, but inclement weather would roll in, putting the game into a protracted weather delay. When it resumed, things continued on the same path until the top of the fifth, when an Elliott solo HR and a massive Obertop 3-run bomb tied the game at 7. An inning later, a Ted Burton HR and a Joe Stewart single made it 9-7 Wolverines. Those who had given up hope started to believe, and Cam Weston was cruising. He got two out in the eighth, but as his pitch count rose, he didn't look quite as sharp. The second out in that inning was hit hard but right at Frey, and then Weston surrendered a walk (squeezed by the home plate umpire, but still).

Jack Payton came up to the plate and on a 1-0 pitch, he scorched a ball to left field that missed clearing the fence by only a couple feet. Jordon Rogers played it quickly, threw it in to Riley Bertram, who made the relay to Ted Burton at second. The swipe came across on a bang-bang play. It was ruled safe but a review was quickly triggered. The angle shown seemed pretty definitive: 

The glove hits the fingers, we see the fingers bend back a bit and the glove move upwards, indicating contact, and then the hand touches the bag. Clear cut, the definition of indisputable video evidence. But the review dragged on and reached its mind numbing conclusion: safe. And this time, the ball in fact did lie. Levi Usher struck again, with a 2RBI single that tied the game. Despite Cam Weston now getting tagged repeatedly, Erik Bakich left him in. A seeming strike was called a ball, and right after that, Cameron Masterman teed off for a two-run blast: 

Michigan did get the leadoff runner on in the ninth, but couldn't get to the Cardinals' closer Michael Prosecky. 11-9 loss, season over. No Super Regionals. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Season takeaways and 2023]

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Pack your bags for Louisville! [Brad Carlson]
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Baseball Roundup Is Slugging Its Way to the NCAAs
Alex.Drain • June 2, 2022 • 2:07pm

So, you might've heard that Michigan Baseball did a thing this weekend. More specifically, they went on a stunning run to win the 2022 B1G Tournament Championship in Omaha, winning four games in four days to knock off each of the teams higher than them in the standings. In the process, they ripped away a bid to the NCAA Tournament (possibly from Rutgers) that a week ago they had no chance in hell of attaining. Thus, Michigan Baseball is off to the big dance for the third straight tournament and the fourth time in five events. It was a big milestone weekend for the program, Erik Bakich's second conference tournament crown, and they got their 15 seconds in the sun of the national landscape. Can they keep it up in the Louisville Regional? Let's take a look: 

 

Recapping Omaha 

Michigan entered the BTT as the #5 seed out of eight teams, drawing #4 Illinois first. Michigan held three separate leads in that one before closing it out, riding Joey Velazquez and Clark Elliott RBI singles in the eighth to snag the edge for good. The next day they matched up with #1 Maryland and it was a classic 2022 Michigan Baseball slugfest. Michigan's hitters went to work against a strong Terps team, leading 5-2 after three and 10-7 after six. It was a bullpen game for the Wolverines, started by Jacob Denner, but five different arms threw and no one got more than two innings. Maryland homered in the top of the seventh to cut the lead to 10-8, but Michigan's hitters poured on five insurance runs in the bottom half, including homers from Elliott and Tito Flores, as well as this squeeze from Jake Marti: 

The Wolverines rode Willie Weiss and Cam Weston in the back half of that game and closed out a 15-8 win. At that point, things were looking pretty good in a double elimination tournament such as the B1G. Michigan advanced into Saturday and awaited the winner of Iowa/Penn State, knowing that they'd need to win only 1/2 against that team to move into the title game. 

The winner of that matchup ended up being #3 Iowa, the B1G's best pitching squad. The pitching of the Hawkeyes showed up in the first battle, as it was scoreless through four, a rarity for this Michigan team. Iowa pulled ahead 3-0 in the sixth, finally getting to Chase Allen, but Michigan added two in the sixth, and had the tying run thrown out at the plate. Unfortunately, the dam finally broke with the Michigan pitching staff, as Denner struggled mightily in the seventh and the game slid out of reach.

The two teams went back at it on Sunday, and this time the Michigan bats had an answer. Connor O'Halloran had a stellar start, Michigan scored two in the first and fourth, and then again faced with a situation where insurance runs would be needed, the Wolverine offense rose to the occasion in the form of a nine-run seventh. Tito Flores and Ted Burton laced doubles, and Clark Elliott had a triple, with those three XBHs combining for eight RBI (!!). Here was Elliott's big knock that put the game on ice: 

Cam Weston finished the game off, and it was ended on a tournament-specific run-rule, 13-1 after seven innings. That game did contain a major wrench in Erik Bakich's plan, though. Willie Weiss, who was supposed to munch several innings, threw only a few pitches before being ejected for using a banned substance on his glove. That ejection came with it a four-game suspension, meaning he would be unavailable for that night's championship game against Rutgers. That put Bakich in a bit of a pinch, the fifth game in four games, a creaky pitching staff already stretched thin, and without one of the key arms he wanted to use on Sunday. 

Nevertheless, the Weiss suspension proved only a minor roadblock. Michigan grabbed an early 2-0 lead on Rutgers, before the Scarlet Knights answered. Michigan took the lead back on yet another Jake Marti squeeze, then tacked on two more in the next couple innings through a Matt Frey RBI single and a wild pitch. Rutgers threatened in the bottom of the sixth down 5-2, loading the bases with two outs. Denner faced a 2-2 count and dropped a breaking ball in back-door, a nearly unhittable pitch for a righty hitter, and got the called third strike to end the inning. The score was 5-3 into the eighth, and it quickly appeared Michigan would need those magic insurance runs yet again to get the game to the finish line. They got it on a two out, three-run HR from Jimmy Obertop: 

That made it 8-3, and Michigan would tack on two more on another squeeze, this time from a pinch-hitting Jack Van Remortel (!!). Brandon Lawrence handled the seventh and eighth before Allen entered to close it out. A quick three outs later and Michigan were the champs: 

The program's 10th B1G Tournament title, and second under Erik Bakich (2015). That got the Maize & Blue an autobid into the NCAA Tournament, an event they had no chance of qualifying for as an at-large. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: The winning formula & Louisville]

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Wobbly pitching [JD Scott]
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Baseball Update Is Fighting For The Tourney
Alex.Drain • April 22, 2022 • 12:46pm

Yesterday I supplied an update for softball, and today we will circle back on Michigan Baseball, which I haven't written about much since the season preview back in mid-February. The team is currently 20-15 overall and 6-3 in the Big Ten and outside the fringes of the NCAA Tournament bubble. Just like yesterday, we're going to follow the format of doing a recap of the season up to this point, talk about developments in the season from a personnel standpoint, and then what to watch for the rest of the way: 

 

A Short Season Recap 

Michigan started their season down in Arlington, TX, in the College Baseball Showdown against three Big 12 opponents. In the first game against a ranked Texas Tech team, Michigan held leads of 4-0, 5-1, and 6-3 throughout the game before heading into the ninth with a 6-5 lead. Willie Weiss was tasked with shutting the game down and proved unable to close it out, allowing the Red Raiders to walk it off. Michigan rebounded to hammer Kansas State the next night before dropping the final game of that weekend 6-1 to Oklahoma. It was a bit of an empty feeling only taking one of three, but Michigan showed they could battle. 

From there, the Wolverines handled UT-Arlington, Seton Hall, and FIU before heading to Boca Raton to take on FAU. In the first game against the Owls, pitching faltered yet again to blow a late lead. Michigan led 8-6 in the eighth, but the late inning arms couldn't get it done. They salvaged the series split with a 20-13 (yes, that was the real score) win the next night and then Michigan was off to the Keith LeClair Classic in Greenville, NC. They beat a ranked Maryland team 7-4, but dropped tight games to ECU and Indiana State after falling behind early in both. 

Tito Flores [JD Scott]

Michigan played a couple more P5 opponents on the road before heading home to Ann Arbor. They went to the Bluegrass State to take on Louisville, which included a memorable blizzard mid-game leading to the suspension of the contest. Michigan won the blizzard game 16-7 after it resumed, but dropped the other two. The last stop on the early season tour was Nashville, for a battle with #4 Vanderbilt. That was Michigan's best chance for a marquee victory and once again, they had it in their jaws before pitching fumbled it away. The Maize & Blue led 4-2 entering the bottom of the ninth, but Willie Weiss allowed a two-out double to tie it, and then Vandy won on a walk-off passed ball, 5-4. Not great! 

Back in Ann Arbor a few days later, the Wolverines played host to Dayton in a three-game series and swept them rather easily. A mid-week trip to Xavier ended in an 8-2 loss and after that, B1G play got going. Michigan is 6-3 in the B1G at the moment, losing 2 of 3 to Iowa, but taking 2 of 3 from Nebraska and sweeping MSU in lopsided fashion this past weekend. Those results are mostly fine, but there have been disappointments in the mid-week games. Against two seemingly easy opponents, Oakland and Purdue-Fort Wayne, Michigan dropped both at home, and both by multiple runs. They were also unable to be competitive down in South Bend against #10 Notre Dame. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Positional Takeaways and the Stretch Run]

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