M baseball loses 7-3 to Princeton

Submitted by snowcrash on

The Michigan baseball team fell behind 6-0 and eventually lost 7-3 to the Princeton Tigers in St Lucie, Florida. The defense in particular had a rough day as three errors led to 4 Tiger runs. Ramsey Romano and Travis Maezes led the M attack with two hits each, but they were also the ones who committed the errors. Zach Zott drove in two runs.

Raoul

March 7th, 2014 at 7:59 PM ^

To me, the heart of the team are three sophomores: Jacob Cronenworth (2B and closer), Travis Maezes (SS), and Evan Hill (southpaw starting pitcher). The other main starting pitchers are also very good, especially 5th-year senior Ben Ballantine but also Trent Szkutnik and Logan McAnallen. Jackson Glines, a junior college transfer playing center field, is off to a great start this year. And the freshman class was highly touted, with the most heralded being Jackson Lamb, who had gotten off to a hot start but then suffered a back injury and has since missed several games and struggled when he has played.

Raoul

March 7th, 2014 at 7:42 PM ^

From what I could gather, Princeton sent their best pitcher out to the mound in this first game of the series, and he carried a no-hitter into the 6th inning. It seems unlikely the rest of their staff will be capable of doing that, so I expect the Wolverines will do better tommorow and on Sunday.

One positive note is that Jackson Glines extended his hitting streak to eight games. Mgoblue.com recap.

Some historical side notes that I discovered in advance of this series: Michigan is still looking for its first victory over Princeton. The Tigers now lead the all-time series 6-0. Of course, the two teams hadn't played in 100 years. Two of Princeton's victories over Michigan—in 1911 and 1912—came when Branch Rickey was the Wolverine head coach. The most recent victory (prior to today's) occurred in 1914 after Rickey had left Michigan to become general manager of the St. Louis Browns. That year, future Hall of Famer George Sisler was Michigan's captain.

/history_lesson

Raoul

March 7th, 2014 at 9:39 PM ^

Michigan has an incredibly rich history in baseball, and I'm not sure that the athletic department does enough to emphasize that. It could be one way to spark some more interest from fans.

While I'm at it, something I posted on Twitter earlier might be of interest to you and others: an interview that John U. Bacon did last year with Fred Wilpon subtitled How Branch Rickey and U-M Changed His Life Forever. It relates to Branch Rickey obviously, but it also ties in with the Michigan-Princeton series in another way because the teams are playing at the spring training facility of the New York Mets, owned by Wilpon.

For those unfamiliar with Sisler and especially his time at Michgian, see Michigan's George Sisler to enter College Baseball Hall of Fame and Sisler Elected to College Baseball Hall of Fame. The speech given by his grandson on his induction is also interesting, especially the part where he talks about Sisler's first meeting with Rickey and his subsequent "tryout" with the Michigan team.

Another interesting note is that after graduation, Rickey signed Sisler to a free-agent contract with the St. Louis Browns, where Sisler spent most of his MLB career.

rockydude

March 7th, 2014 at 8:05 PM ^

Is this a really bad sign for our season? Usually losing to an Ivy means disaster, but there are a few sports they are quite good at: hockey and that sort of thing. Is baseball one that they are competitve in, or was this just kind of a rough outing for us ?

Vote_Crisler_1937

March 7th, 2014 at 9:48 PM ^

when I was at NU we would occasionally lose to Dartmouth at least, maybe another Ivy school or two. It might be no big deal at all if they were tired and ran into a hot pitcher. Sometimes we would be exhausted from the travel alone (like bussing from San Fran to LA) or just not used to playing a lot of games in the heat yet. The talent is widespread in baseball so Princeton could easily have a pro pitcher in waiting especially if he's the equivalent to Caris LeVert in development. When M turns around and beats a top school once or twice this game may not matter at all.

Alton

March 7th, 2014 at 10:14 PM ^

Dartmouth is a perfect example from Michigan's baseball history.

In 1987, Michigan was the 2-seed in the Georgia Tech baseball regional, matched against #5-seed Dartmouth in the first round (regionals were 6 teams back then).  Unfortunately for Michigan, Dartmouth had 1 superstar pitcher, Mike Remlinger, who was a first-round draft pick and played in MLB from 1991 to 2006. 

Dartmouth beat Michigan 4-0 on what was I think a 2-hitter by Remlinger, and then Dartmouth turned around and lost their next 2 games to be eliminated from the tournament.

Maybe that's what was going on today with Princeton, maybe not.  But obviously in baseball, sometimes all it takes is a great pitcher and an otherwise inferior team can outclass a much better team.  We will see tomorrow and Sunday, when Michigan plays 3 more games against Princeton.

Princetonwolverine

March 7th, 2014 at 10:16 PM ^

This was Princeton's first win. Princeton is traditionally good in basketball and lacrosse.

Raoul

March 8th, 2014 at 8:40 AM ^

Tell that to Florida International, currently ranked #21 in the country in one poll and receiving votes in several others, which lost a game to Dartmouth last weekend 3-0.

I'll take back one thing I said above: Michigan may not have faced Princeton's best pitcher yesterday. One of the pitchers the Wolverines will face today is Cameron Mungo, a sophomore righty considered by Baseball America to be the top Ivy League prospect for the 2015 draft. In their Ivy preview, they called Princeton "young but talented on the mound" and deemed Mungo "a projectable 6-foot-4, 185-pounder with feel for three quality pitches."

Blerg

March 7th, 2014 at 10:31 PM ^

I noticed a sign on the baseball stadium while I was walking to Yost this evening.  It highlighted Michigan Baseball including: 2 National Championships (pretty good) and the 4th most wins in college baseball! That seem crazy/a bit odd to anyone else?

Alton

March 7th, 2014 at 11:27 PM ^

1. Fordham-4298

2. Texas-3246

3. Southern California-2698

4. Michigan-2681

5. Stanford-2655

6. Arizona State-2636

7. Arizona-2573

8. Florida State-2568

9. Clemson-2566

10. Washington State-2536

Michigan is also #20 all time in winning percentage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Division_I_college_baseball_team_stat…

Remember that Michigan's first varsity season was 1860, more than 20 years before any of the other universities on that list even existed, except for Fordham.

Raoul

March 8th, 2014 at 12:22 AM ^

In addition to what Alton pointed out, keep in mind that the College World Series dates back only to 1947, so there are no official national champions for about 80 years of Michigan baseball history. In fact, I discovered in my research noted above that Michigan was considered the winner of the unofficial national title in 1914. Here's a—somewhat hyperbolic—snippet from page 275 of a 1915 Michigan yearbook found through Google Books:

Not sure if there are other years in which Michigan might have won an unofficial title.