SportsMonday: Michigan isn’t winning games from the mound, but it doesn’t necessarily need to

On March 25, following a 9-8 loss to Eastern Michigan, coach Tracy Smith offered a rather candid diagnosis of the Michigan baseball team’s status. 

“The mound is just, it’s abysmal right now,” Smith said. “I can’t sometimes understand what I’m even looking at, the amount of free bases that we give up. You can’t continue to ask your offense … to bail you out time and time again. At some point, we need to pitch the baseball well enough, throw strikes, play the defense behind him, and actually win a game from the mound.”

In that game, the Wolverines walked nine batters and gave up eight earned runs. It was a particularly disappointing outing for a pedestrian-at-best pitching staff, which walks 5.4 batters per nine innings and allows more than six runs per game. Michigan’s 5.41 team ERA, the ninth best in the Big Ten, isn’t awful, but it certainly isn’t the driving force behind winning games either. 

But in Big Ten play, the Wolverines’ defensive struggles haven’t mattered all that much. Because while Smith might prefer it if the offense didn’t have to bail his pitchers out, the bats have done it enough to overcome their woes in the field and keep winning games.

This past weekend — a series win over sixth-place Penn State — put that method of winning on display. Michigan gave up an average of eight runs across the three games, but it still walked away with two of the three games in hand thanks to its bats. 

Even when the series looked to be in jeopardy when the Wolverines went down 5-0 by the third inning Sunday, the bats led them to storm right back. They scored five runs in the bottom of that frame to tie the game back up. Then junior right-hander Kurt Barr settled in, Michigan kept Penn State silent the rest of the game and a pinch-hit double by sophomore Jonathan Kim drove in the winning run. 

“We played terribly, we’re down five,” Smith said Sunday. “And the mantra at that time was, ‘let’s just cut this in half, have good at bats one at a time.’ Because the tendency sometimes when you’re down five after the way you start, everybody wants to hit a five-run home run, which clearly does not exist. I love the way the guys stayed in their approach.” 

Overcoming poor outings from the bullpen and putting up an extra run or two has become the formula for success for the Wolverines. During conference play, the pitching staff has been worse in their losses, but it’s not like it tends to excel in wins either. Michigan has given up only 2.5 more runs per loss during conference play compared to wins. That might seem like a lot, but when the average in wins is 5.1 runs allowed, it isn’t that major of a change. 

What has differed more significantly between wins and losses during Big Ten play is the number of runs the Wolverines score. They’ve scored just four runs per loss, but 9.7 runs per win. It’s not groundbreaking information — score more runs, win more games — but because Michigan is so consistently unremarkable on the mound, it puts the burden of winning almost entirely on whether the bats meet a nearly static quota of runs. 

Luckily for Michigan, the bats have been good enough lately that its formula is working pretty well. The Wolverines have won three of their first four Big Ten series, and sit in fourth place in the conference. Series with third-place Oregon and first-place Iowa still loom, but as of right now, Michigan is in position to make the Big Ten Tournament, end up with a relatively favorable pool placement and give itself a shot to win the Big Ten’s autobid to the NCAA Tournament — its most realistic path to the postseason. 

Yes, the pitching staff finding its groove as the season continues would make things easier for the Wolverines. Barr and junior right-hander David Lally Jr. have shown that at their best, they’re capable of anchoring a strong rotation. Senior right-hander Will Rogers has excelled out of the pen too, so with a little more consistency elsewhere, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. Until that actually happens, though, Michigan will have to continue to rely on its bats to make up for its inability to win games by shutting down opposing offenses. 

But if the bats keep hitting like they have lately, then that doesn’t have to be a bad thing for the Wolverines. Right now, Michigan’s offense is good enough to compensate for its defensive struggles and more. 

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