Early deficit hurts baseball in 13-4 loss to Michigan
The bats couldn’t generate any offense, the pitching struggled to finish innings and in the end the Central Michigan baseball team was simply over matched.
The Chippewas fell,13-4, Wednesday evening to the Michigan Wolverines in Ann Arbor at Ray Fisher Stadium, falling to 10-14 on the season and 6-10 on the road.
Head coach Steve Jaksa has said all season the keys for this team are strong pitching and quality defense — things he was not impressed with Wednesday.
“We did not play good defense today and we did not pitch well overall today,” he said. “We had one guy we though pitched well and then spurts, but not enough to keep us in the game. We weren’t clean enough defensively, but at the same time we weren’t clean enough on the mound either.”
Freshman right-handed pitcher Zack Kohn got the start for the Chippewas and lasted 4 2/3 innings and gave up six runs on seven hits. Kohn got into trouble early with a four-run second inning and CMU could never recover.
Freshman Jake Raether, junior Braxton Markle, senior Jordan Grosjean and sophomore Jack Collins came on in relief. The group combined surrendered eight runs on eight hits and four walks in 3 1/3 innings pitched.
Junior Daniel Jipping got CMU on the board in the sixth inning with an RBI fielder’s choice to the shortstop. However, the Wolverines pulled away in the seventh inning with seven runs. U-M senior Michael Brdar delivered the exclamation point with a two-run home run to push Michigan’s lead to 13-1.
“Anytime you give someone opportunities, they’re going to break through. We call those freebies,” Jaksa said. “Whether you walk them, hit them or make an error the lineup keeps getting turned around and your guy has to throw more pitches which takes more energy out of him.”
Trailing by 12 runs, the Chippewas found life in the eighth inning with RBIs from sophomore Dazon Cole and senior Robert Greenman and freshman Zach Giles scored on a throwing error. However, that was as close as it would it get.
CMU is 3-3 against Big Ten foes this season.
What’s Next
CMU returns to Theunissen Stadium Friday to open Mid-American Conference play with a three-game series with Miami (OH). First pitch is scheduled for 3:05 p.m.
“You got to turn the page and make sure we’re ready to play this weekend," Jaksa said. "We’ll know each other very well going into this weekend’s series. You have to make sure you’re ready to play the next game or you won’t play well. We have to get ourselves ready to play like the past couple of weekends.”
