Baseball upset by Lawrence Tech (NAIA)
It's not been an easy start to the season for Michigan Baseball. This has made the early struggles not look like a fluke unfortunately.
Today's home opener was an oddball game against Lawrence Tech of Southfield, MI from the NAIA. It was added to the schedule early last week.
Unfortunately the steep drop in level of competition of Southern/West Coast teams to an NAIA team didn't change much.
Michigan lead 2-0 in the 5th inning but LTU plating their first run opened the floodgates. LTU tied the game in the 6th inning and had a 6-run 7th inning to take control of the game and win 8-3.
This loss drops Michigan to 4-11 on the season. The non-conference was challenging early with games at #4 Stanford, SDSU and Arizona out on the West coast and even included a 5-0 Michigan win over Stanford and nearly taking two in the four game series after a walkoff loss one night. But I don't think there is any excuse for this. This is pretty embarrassing.
We'll look to rebound this weekend with a 3-game series against Bowling Green.
App State
NJIT
And now this!
There's one in every sport!
That team was not gonna go anywhere in 2015 regardless
The way the rest of the season played out is a pretty good indicator of that Michigan was not better than Michigan State.
LT spent the last week in Florida during their spring break. Their last game of that trip on March 10 they lost 17-0 to fellow NAIA team Bellevue University (Nebraska).
While it is a disappointing start to the season and it is certainly concerning to lose to a team at that level of competition ....
Is that true? What are some other comparable upsets in college baseball?
It's not common, but it has and will happen again. College teams have beaten MLB teams in spring training. Granted these are not likely the full regular roster, but they are still professionals. Baseball is a very quirky game.
If I wasn't so lazy I'd be interested in looking at a 10 year average of the 1st and last place team's winning percentage in each of the 4 major sports (professional, I guess). Seems like that could be a decent way of looking at how much luck is in each single game for the sports. I don't know, I have no stats background to tell if that is in any way valid. I'd still have to guess that baseball would be the lowest winning percentage difference between first and last on average.
March 15th, 2018 at 12:33 AM ^
No real analysis necessary, because it's not close. These are made-up examples, but if they're in the right range. In football, the worst team will be about 2-14 every year (0.125). The best team will be around 13-3 (0.813) -- the difference is 0.688.
In basketball, the worst team is somewhere around 22-60 (0.268), and the best team is somewhere around 60-22 (0.732) -- 0.464.
t's harder to say in hockey, what with the shootout losses and what-have-you, but the worst team usually has around 50 points or so out of 164 possible points, so about 0.304-ish. The best teams will have around 110 points or so -- 0.671, for a difference of 0.367.
In baseball, a really bad team might go 56-106. That's 0.345. And a really good team might go 104-58, or 0.642. That's a spread of 0.297.
Curse this goddamn touchscreen computer.
March 14th, 2018 at 10:01 PM ^
You monster!
The mud hens would beat the tigers 2 out of ten times. ok, bad example but that's baseball.
M wasn't throwing the best lineup out there either, I'd image. Especially the pitching.
teams typically start their 4th or 5th guy for these mid-week games.
You'll often see this in college baseball: when a power team (say LSU) is playing a mid-week game against a "non-power" team (say, Southern University), you'll see a 5th starter going up against an ace. The "non-power" team will throw their ace because they view it is an opportunity for an upset win. And those upsets do happen - which will help the NCAA resume of the "non-power" team.
Today's loss is a bit of an eyebrow raiser - but upsets do happen in baseball and I'm sure there were circumstances (e.g., getting lesser pitchers some work).
March 15th, 2018 at 11:12 AM ^
This is exactly right. I played at two different NAIA schools in college and we competed neck and neck with 3 different division 1 schools in my 4 years playing. Everytime we played one of those teams, we usually saw a Freshman who had less than 10 innings in college. Baseball is a strange game anyway, because you can't just overpower an inferior oppenant like you can in basketball and football.
Disappointing year so far..There alredy at a point where they have to win the league to get in the tourney as a at large bid is almost out the wiindow alredy..very disappointing
Disappointing year so far..There alredy at a point where they have to win the league to get in the tourney as a at large bid is almost out the wiindow alredy..very disappointing
for years in A2 was LTU's first signee three years ago when they restarted their program after a 50 year hiatus.
He was a decent high school player but, c'mon! Rock bottom...
in relief and got the win lol. That will be the highlight of his athletic career for sure.
OP is just reporting the score. First ever loss to an NAIA team.
Shit happens when you lose 14 guys to the Draft but I didn't think the shit would include this. MAC teams maybe but not a small NAIA school.
Obviously going to be step back from last year but this was ugly.
March 14th, 2018 at 11:02 PM ^
The pitching looks like a major issue. I think losing the pitching coach to Georgia is an issue.
Lawrence Tech is in their 3rd year as a program (only 2nd season playing). They have 4 seniors (all community college transfers), one junior and all others are Sophomores and Freshmen. They basically have the experience of a community college team and went 13-34 last year.
There are very good NAIA programs out there that would not surprise me to give NCAA D-1 teams a good game or even win. Lawrence Tech is not one of them.
Baseball is a weird game but this loss is very embarrassing for Michigan.
As a former college baseball player some of the best players I played with were JUCO guys. JUCO baseball isn't JUCO basketball/football. It is very competitive and a lot of players move on to Dl schools or go pro.
I played NAIA baseball and wasn't knocking the level of play of JUCO baseball. So I apologize if it came off that way. I was trying to say that this particular NAIA team is not a well established team that is playing for national titles, loaded with seniors and taking D-1 transfers every year. They are basically all Freshmen and Sophomores who are not likely to go pro or play D-1 ball.
As someone who played NAIA baseball I don't see this as a huge concern. When D1 schools play games against lower level schools (NAIA, Dll, Dlll) it's usually a rest day for most of the starters. They probably aren't starting a rotation guy. Usually the lineup is moved around so they can see what guys can do.
Baseball is a sport where any team can win on any given day, especially because it is a game of slumps. They will be fine.