WOLVERINES

Two-out rallies burn Michigan in loss to FGCU

Brett Friedlander
Special to The Detroit News
Erik Bakich

Chapel Hill, N.C. — Getting the first two outs of an inning wasn’t any trouble for the Michigan baseball team in Friday’s NCAA Tournament opener against Florida Gulf Coast.

It’s that third out that proved to be problematic.

The Wolverines surrendered 10 runs to the second-seeded Eagles, all but one of them coming with two outs, on the way to a 10-6 loss that sends them into the losers bracket of the double-elimination regional at North Carolina’s Boshamer Stadium.

Coach Erik Bakich’s team will try to extend its season in an elimination game against top-seeded host North Carolina, an 8-4 loser to No. 4 Davidson, at 1 p.m. Saturday.

“Two-out RBIs were a storyline in the game,” Bakich said after watching his fourth-seeded team fall to 42-16. “There were a lot of timely hits, a lot of big hits, a lot of momentum-changing hits. They had more than we did.”

The Wolverines had a chance to break the game open early when with a little help from the FGCU defense, they scored twice in the opening inning. The rally began when leadoff man Ako Thomas reached on catcher’s interference, escaped a rundown between second and third on a grounder by Michael Brdar and scored on an RBI single by Miles Lewis.

Brdar then scored on a bases-loaded walk to Nick Poirier to increase the lead to 2-0. Michigan failed to capitalize further on the opportunity, though, leaving three men on when Jonathan Engelmann struck out to end the inning.

“Two in the top of the first,” Brdar said. “If you’d asked me before it started, we’re all happy with that. We jumped on them like we wanted to, we were aggressive throughout the game. There were missed opportunities on both sides.”

The Wolverines had several of them in the early innings against Eagles ace Kutter Crawford. But even though they were able to knock the hard-throwing right-hander out of the game in the top of the fifth, they were only able to score twice more against him.

The first of those runs came on a solo homer in the second by Johnny Slater. The other came on an RBI single by Drew Lugbauer in the fifth. Lewis followed Lugbauer’s hit with a single of his own before reliever Mario Leon came out of the bullpen to fan Jake Bivens and Poirier to end the threat.

They were two of the 13 strikeouts recorded by FGCU pitchers in the game, six of which came on called third strikes.

“I’d like to think we’re a better offensive team than that,” Bakich said. “Strikeouts are easy outs and we’d rather be able to make contact, put the barrel on it, press the game and put a little more pressure on them. We didn’t do that.”

In the meantime, FGCU (43-18) began chipping away at Michigan starter Oliver Jaskie.

The Atlantic Sun Conference champions got single runs in the second, fourth and fifth — the latter coming on a tape-measure homer by first baseman Nick Rivera.to pull to within 4-3. The Eagles then took charge in the sixth, once again after the first two hitters in the inning were retired.

Jake Smith, who came into the game hitting only .203, set the table with a triple down the right-field line — his third hit of the day. Ninth hitter Spencer Levine then tied the score with a routine ground ball and took a bad hop and hit third baseman Lugbauer in the chest.

Two batters later, FGCU took its first lead on a single by Gage Morey before Rivera launched an even longer homer off the scoreboard in left-center field to make it an 8-6 game. The Eagles tacked on their final two runs in the eighth when Bakich elected to intentionally walk Rivera with two outs and two on, only to have the strategy backfire when Richie Garcia followed with a single through the right side.

“We knew going in he was their biggest power threat,” the Wolverines coach said of Rivera. “Later in the game we’d see enough of that guy and didn’t want him to hurt us again and decided to walk him. We probably should have flipped the script on those two at bats.”

Brett Friedlander is a freelance writer.

CHAPEL HILL REGIONAL

Friday

Game 1 — Florida Gulf Coast 10, Michigan 6

Game 2 — Davidson 8, North Carolina 4

Saturday

Game 3 — Michigan vs. North Carolina, 1 p.m.

Game 4 — Florida Gulf Coast vs. Davidson, 6 p.m.

Sunday

Game 5 — Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 loser, 1 p.m.

Game 6 — Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 6 p.m.

Monday

Game 7 (if necessary) — Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, 6 p.m.