Mid-week Baseball Recap: Michigan splits games with Stanford, California

Michigan Baseball (7-5 record) played its first set of midweek games this year while in California for spring break, dropping a contest to Stanford on Tuesday night before responding Wednesday with a shutout victory at California.

Here’s a quick recap of both games.

Tuesday: 5-4 L at Stanford

Win: Jackson Parthasarathy (1-0): 3.1 IP, 3 BB, 2 SO

Loss: Angelo Smith (0-1): 1.1 IP, 2 H, 4 R (1 ER), 1 BB, 1 SO

Save: Zach Grech (2): 2.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R (1 ER), SO

The best way to describe this game would be calling it an exercise in missed opportunities, which just happens in baseball over the course of a long season. The Wolverines left 11 runners on base in this game and allowed four unearned runs in the loss to Stanford (4-8 record).

Freshman Cameron Weston made his first start of the season and his line was pretty solid. He went four innings and allowed one unearned run on three hits with two walks and a strikeout in 59 pitches. Sophomore Isaiah Page was great out of the bullpen to close out the game, throwing 2.2 scoreless innings of no-hit baseball and a walk to go with four punch-outs.

The Wolverines scored three runs in the third with the trio of RBI coming from Jack Blomgren, Joe Donovan and Matthew Schmidt. Weston and the Wolverines would give a run back to make the score 3-1 at the end of three. The sixth was when things got dicey, as the Cardinal scored on a run on a bases-loaded walk and a huge error with two outs that led to three runs for Stanford, putting the score at 5-3 at the end of the sixth. Dominic Clementi reached on a fielder’s choice in the eighth that led to an RBI to put things at 5-4, which is where the game would end.

Wednesday: 5-0 W at Cal

Win: Walker Cleveland (1-0): 4 IP, 4 H, 1 BB, 1 SO

Loss: Lucas Gather (0-1): IP, 3 H 3 R (3 ER), 2 BB, 1 SO

Michigan bounced back with a relatively clean game and five Wolverine pitchers (Cleveland, Keaton Carattini, Jacob Denner, Joe Pace and Benjamin Keizer) combined to shutout the Golden Bears (3-9 record) and hold them to seven hits on the night.

Cleveland, a sophomore, made his first start of the season and went four innings, allowing four hits with a walk and a strikeout. Sophomore infielder Riley Bertram was the hot bat of the night, going 2-for-4 with a 2-RBI double in the first and an RBI single in the seventh. Outfielder Clark Elliott (RBI single in first) and catcher Joe Donovan (solo HR in fifth) plated the other two runs for the Wolverines.

This game was also notable in that freshman Tito Flores picked up his first-career hit with the Wolverines after hitting a single in the ninth inning.

What’s next

The Wolverines close out their month-long trip away from Ann Arbor this weekend in Malibu, California with a three-game set against Pepperdine. They project to be back on a normal pitching schedule this weekend with Jeff Criswell, Steve Hajjar and Blake Beers set to get the starting nods on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Friday’s game is scheduled for a 5 p.m. ET first pitch with Saturday and Sunday both set for 4 p.m. ET. It does not appear those games will stream anywhere.