Baseball's win streak up to 20; beats PSU 14-2 for series sweep
That crazy 8-7 eleven inning game yesterday was just a blip on the radar.
Michigan, winners of 19 straight games, took on last place Penn State today at Ray Fisher Stadium in the series finale.
Michigan raced out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning on RBI singles from the freshmen pair of Jesse Franklin & Jordan Nwogu while another run scored on a passed ball.
Nwogu smacked a 2 out solo shot over the wall drawing an applause from Alumni Field which is across the way from Ray Fisher Stadium. 4-0 Michigan.
The 4th inning was a big one for the Wolverines today. Jonathan Engelmann knocked in a 2 RBI single with bases loaded to make it 6-0, and then again the freshman Jesse Franklin struck. A 3-run bomb to make it 9-0 Michigan after 4 innings.
The 6th wasn't too bad either. Blake Nelson, another freshman, drove in Engelmann with an RBI single to make it 10-0 Wolverines. North Dakota transfer Miles Lewis singeled just inside the left field line, allowing Blake Nelson to then score to make it 11-0.
Harrison Salter then bashed a 2 RBI single up the middle with Ako Thomas adding another run on an RBI single to make it 14-0 Michigan.
The offense was great today but the story was pitcher Karl Kauffman who had 11 strikeouts on the day. Penn State had no chance. Kauffman's day was done after the 7th when he allowed a PSU run, but finished the day with 3 hits, 1 walk, 1 run allowed and 11 Ks. Pretty good.
Penn State got another run later on but nothing else.
20 straight wins for Michigan. They beat Penn State, 14-2 and sweep the series.
Michigan is now 24-11 and 11-0 in the B1G.
A much tougher test awaits Michigan next weekend on the road when they face Iowa. They are the best team Michigan has faced in the B1G so far, so the win streak will be put to the test.
Still, 20 straight wins in baseball is extremely impressive no matter who you play. Especially when your last loss came against an NAIA team with the season outlook being shaky.
Minnesota LOST to Iowa and Indiana Lost at Ohio St in 12 innings which means Michigan has a 2 game lead over Minnesota 3 over Illinois and 4 over Indiana AND next week Illinois is at Indiana and Minnesota is at Ohio St...Sweep the Hawkeyes and we are really sitting pretty..tall task but even winning 2 of 3 would be HUGE quite possibly the biggest series of the year right now
I'm hijacking this to respond to a comment you made awhile ago in a different thread that you probably won't check. You said you might have a copy of the 2008 Duke basketball game, is there any chance you could check? Honestly I'm willing to pay to figure out a way to get it digital given that I've been looking for a decade with no luck.
email me at [email protected]
sorry I do not have that game..The other day u mentioned the score 81-73..I rememebr I had a M vs Duke tape with that score but alas that was in 1997 not 2008..I looked but I cant find that 2008 game...sorry to get your hopes up
It did. An we lost to not just an NAIA team, but a Division 2 NAIA team that has only had a baseball program for a handful of years. And it wasn't close. It was 8-3 in our home opener.
This will be a great story if we can win the B1G.
Michigan has only won 20 games in a row 3 other times in program history.
1945 (20), 1985 (25, record), and 1987 (22). All 3 of those teams won the B1G Regular Season Championship.
Another fact I just remembered. The all-time series with Penn State was 47-47 headed into this weekend.
We lead 50-47 now. We trailed 39-46 prior to Erik Bakich's arrival. Since then, 11-1 and on an 8 game win streak in the series currently.
is from Ann Arbor and played on a bunch of teams where I was either the head or an assistant coach when the kids were growing up. Sure that will be the highlight of his athletic career.
We're still a bubble team to even make the tournament. Let's just keep winning and see what happens!
This should be kept in perspective. A 20-game baseball winning streak is impressive, but it's similar to one of the basetball mid-majors winning 9 or 10 in a row in their conference. Big Ten baseball is a mid-major conference due to geography and weather. Going backwards from 2017, the number of Big Ten teams with a bid: 5, 3, 5, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1.
Is Omaha possible? Sure, anything's possible, provided that they make it into the tournament in the first place. But it's far from likely. As a matter of perspective -- and knowing that baseball RPI suffers from a lot of the same probelms that basketball RPI does -- Michigan's baseball RPI as of last night was #52, or 6th in the conference.
Regardless of the state of other teams we have no control of, this streak should be celebrated.
This is our longest since the 2008 B1G Champion team--the last Michigan team to win it.
You're right. Context and perspective are overrated, especially in a reply to a request for context and perspective.
It is still impressive, but even within the Big Ten (which is already a bad conference):
- 8 of our 11 conference wins are against the worst three teams in the conference (Northwestern and Penn State are each 1-14; Maryland is 3-8).
- The other 3 came against MSU, who is 6-5 in conference and 14-21 overall. Still below average even within the Big Ten.
- Even Iowa is not very good. They are right in the middle of the Big Ten at 7-6.
- Of the other Top 4 Big Ten teams, we only play one, and it's a home series (Illinois; we don't play Minnesota, OSU, or Indiana).
Will be very interesting to see if we can hang onto the conference lead. And, you can only play the schedule you're given, so just have to keep winning.
Im guessing 20 straight is a program record? If not it has to be close ..
34 in a row is the NCAA record held by Texas 1977 and Florida Atlantic 1999
EDIT: looks like 20 in a row is the conference record . But the site is baseballstats.com from 2011