NCAA Baseball Field of 64 Projection
Remember all the angst over the baseball team? Well, Baseball America now has Michigan as the first team out of the tournament, so a tourney bid is well within grasp. Michigan has won seven of its last eight and is currently tied with Indiana for first in the B1G. Michigan has a big series with Nebraska starting Friday at Fisher Stadium. The Huskers are just behind Michigan in the B1G. BTW, Bakich’s Clemson team is neither in the tournament nor among the first eight out.
Fire Coach Smith!
They figured out how to hit AND get some people out!
If we win the Big Ten regular season, and a 5-1 start is pretty good, they will HAVE to take us for the tournament! Have to.
We can do this! Fire Smith!
Hire Bakich!
and then re-fire Bakich!
This is such a weird team. The pitching is better but not by that much. For the weekend they have 1 very good starterin O'Halloran, Chase Allen is an average starter who is pitching well enough to keep them in games, and a revolving door of pitchers waiting for their turn to get shelled in the 3rd spot. The weekday starter is constantly changing and outside of yesterday had also been getting shelled. From yesterday's box score Denner seemed to pitch decently and didn't pitch long, maybe he gets the Sunday slot back this weekend. We just need someone to give them a chance on Sundays. The bullpen is still hit and miss, you never know what you're gonna get. Only Rennard and Voit are reliable and neither has been shut down.
We still don't have our perceived best position player back but the offense has started to come around. They swapped freshman centerfielders with Jonathan Kim taking over for Greg Pace, and that has been a very good move so far. Players are starting to come back to their career averages after starting slow. Burton has been good all year, but Flores looked like he succumbed to the pressure of having to carry the lineup. Thankfully he's been good lately. Longo has been a life saver as a sophomore taking a leap, just hope this is a mini slump and not something prolonged. Van Remortel and Marti also seems to have improved. Sadly Velazquez is slumping bad. Mitch Voit has been outstanding as a true freshman. I don't think he was even that highly rated. Hopefully Obertop comes back seamlessly as the offense is going to have to carry them again outside of Friday nights.
I had some 1991-92 Detroit Tigers flashbacks in reading this.