Graduate outfielder Stepehen Hrustich has often proclaimed that he will do anything he can to help propel the Michigan baseball team to a win. Hrustich provides power at the plate, a dependable defensive presence in the outfield and even appears behind the plate with a catcher’s glove on occasion. He lived by those words, and was a bright spot in the series loss against Indiana.
Hrustich embodies the versatile skill set that Wolverines’ coach Tracy Smith often requires from his players. But this late in the season, Hrustich shouldn’t have to.
Michigan started the series Thursday with a clean 3-2 win against the Hoosiers. In that game, Smith employed just two pitchers: sophomore right-hander Kurt Barr and fifth-year left-hander Jacob Denner. Freshman outfielder AJ Garcia was the sole pinch hitter of the matchup, entering in the eighth inning to provide defensive support when the Wolverines took the lead.
Despite finding success in this model, the following two matchups couldn’t have looked more opposite given Smith’s personnel usage. By the bottom of the eighth inning in the second game, Hrustich was the only starter who remained in the field as the rest of the defense was substituted out.
This trend continued in game three when Smith utilized a multitude of pinch hitters as he attempted to create a spark at the plate. But the spark wasn’t created from one of the introduced batters, instead it came from inside Smith’s starting lineup.
As the Wolverines’ struggled to find consistency on the mound throughout the season, they continued to adjust, pressuring the rest of the team to transition as well. Junior catcher Will Rogers’ provides a necessary presence behind the plate, on the mound and in the batters box which often forces the majority of these switches.
“We figured we were going to use Rogers at some point but we didn’t know when,” Smith said. “And then once we were chasing runs we started pinch hitting late. We then brought Leitgeb in to catch because that was our only option.”
So when Smith chooses to call upon Rogers as a pitcher, he’s forced to make offensive adjustments to compensate for the loss of him at the plate. When Rogers was in the bullpen during game three, freshman catcher Brock Leitgeb took his spot behind the plate. Leitgeb has struggled recently maintaining control behind the plate, so in the seventh inning of game three when Leitgeb fell short, it was none other than Hrustich who took over the position.
Rogers did his job this series. In game one, he was responsible for two of the three runs in the matchup. Game two saw Rogers take up left field and in game three he threw for 3.2 innings. He played well all over the field, but the transitions from the rest of the team that followed weren’t all successful.
Even as Smith made adjustments through pinch hitting and defensive personnel transitions, it was the consistent members of the lineup that found the most success. Freshman designated hitter Colin Priest played every minute of the series and had the most tangible impact, providing a homerun in each game of the series. On the other hand, the replacements weren’t as impactful.
“You can stomach a loss if you feel like you’re in there battling and competing and giving the best effort,” Smith said. “We did not do that on the mound or in the batter’s box. And it just led to some of the early decisions of having to get away from our game plan early on with the substitutions, (we) just didn’t really give ourselves a chance tonight.”
While Smith attempted to create momentum through personnel shifts and lineup transitions, it was his consistent players that made the real difference. While some changes were necessary due to limited depth, one has to wonder if Smith had given his starting lineup more time to blossom if the outcome of the series would’ve gone the Wolverines’ way.
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