The Michigan Daily - SportsMonday - April 10, 2006 - 5B SUICIDE SQUEEZE Baseball Friday's Game: MICHIGAN 8 WP: Drew Taylor (2-3) MINNESOTA 6 LP: Tyler Oakes (1-1) Saturday's Game 1: MICHIGAN 5 LP: Jason Christian (0-1) MINNESOTA 6 WP: Gary Perinar (2-0) Saturday's Game 2: MICHIGAN 2 WP: Chris Fetter (2-0) MINNESOTA 0 LP: John Gaub (0-1) Sunday's Game: MICHIGAN 2 WP: Adam Abraham (3-2) MINNESOTA 0 LP: Cole DeVries (3-2) You've Gotta Have Heart Wolverines refuse to buckle under pressure By Chris Herring Daily Sports Writer MINNEAPOLIS - From now on, the Michigan baseball team should know that no lead is safe and no deficit insur- mountable. In a crazy, unpredictable weekend, the team fell way behind, carried a comfortable lead and had a couple of close contests during its 3-1 series win over Big Ten powerhouse Minnesota. Strangely enough, the Wolverines won the game in which they trailed by six, then blew the game in which they had a three-run lead. Down 6-0, Michigan stormed its way back to an 8-6 vic- tory on Friday. With momentum carrying over from the pre- vious day, the team built a 5-2 lead and needed just one more out to take the first two games of the series. But then something bizarre happened. The Gophers appeared to have batted out of order with two outs. If a team is caught batting out of order, it must forfeit an out, which in this situation, would have ended the game. But, because Minnesota's lineup card matched the umpire's lineup card, the batter was ruled legal, and no out was recorded. Minnesota then went on to score four runs with two outs in the bottom of the eighth, stealing a win from the Wolver- ines, 6-5. Having orchestrated a huge comeback win in game two, the Gophers seemed to have all the momentum heading into the third game of the series. "We basically stole one from them (Friday), and then they came back the very next game and stole one from us," senior Paul Hammond said. "We had a three-run lead in extra innings, and for (Minnesota) to win that game put the pres- sure right back on us." It would have been easy for Michigan to fold under that pressure. But the Wolverines did anything but collapse. Following a complete-game shutout performance from redshirt freshman Chris Fetter against the Gophers in game two of Saturday's doubleheader, junior Andrew Hess and freshman Adam Abraham combined to throw nine innings of shutout ball in Sunday's finale to win the series three games to one. "Our team has a lot of character," said sophomore Nate Recknagel, who hit what proved to be a game-winning home run on Saturday, as well as Sunday's game-winning double. 1 "We showed that we can play in any situation - behind, ahead or close. We get the job done." PLAYER OF THE WEEK Nate Recknagel Michigan The sophomore drove in both of Michigan's runs in Sunday's 2-0 shutout with a ninth- inning double, for his second game-winning hit of the series. He also hit a home run to put Michigan ahead 1-0 in the Wolverines' 2- 0 second-game shutout on Saturday. NOTABLE QUOTABLE "I'm real proud of him ... He grew up a lot (Saturday)." - Michigan coach Rich Maloney on red- shirt freshman Chris Fetter after Fetter came back from allowing a game-winning hit and pitched a complete game shutout. BY THE NUMBERS Number of errors made by the Wol- verine defense over the four week- end games in Minnesota. 'M' STAT LEADERS Home runs Doug Pickens and Mike 5 Schmidt Runs Pickens 24 Hits Leif Mahler 31 RBI Pickens 22 Average Mahler .352 BIG TEN STANDINGS Team Big Ten Overall 1. Northwestern 6-1 9-16 2. Ohio State 6-2 18-6 3. Purdue 5-3 16-9 4. Michigan 4-4 15-11 Iowa 4-4 14-10 Michigan State 4-4 13-13 7. Illinois 3-5 14-11 Minnesota 3-5 13-13 Penn State 3-5 7-21 10. Indiana 1-6 8-19 AROUND THE BIG TEN Friday's results: Michigan 8, MINNESOTA 6 Iowa 6, PENN STATE 1 PURDUE 10, Michigan State 1 Saturday's results: Michigan 5, 2 MINNESOTA 6, 0 Ohio State 4, 5 ILLINOIS 1, 1 Northwestern 4, INDIANA 2 Iowa 11, 2 PENN STATE 3, 1 PURDUE 6, 0 Michigan State 1, 4 Sunday's results: Michigan 2, MINNESOTA 0 ILLINOIS 8, 1 Ohio State 6, 9 Northwestern 12, 3 INDIANA 1, 2 PENN STATE 11, Iowa 10 PURDUE 4, Michigan State 3 *Home teams in caps DIAMOND GRADES The four Daily baseball writers will grade the team on four different aspects of the game each weekend. Sure, baseballs may be simple, but we're classic. TOMMASO GOMEZ/Daily Nate Recknagel led the Wolverines to victory in both of their shutouts this weekend at the Metrodome. Michigan looks forward to using some momentum of its own, after becoming the first team to beat the Gophers at home in a series since 2002. It couldn't have come at a better time, since Michigan dropped three of four to Northwestern a week ago and battles Ohio State at home this weekend. "I'm not even sure how many times Northwestern has won a series against Michigan," Michigan coach Rich Maloney Blue's Fetter comes back from close loss with stellar performar said. "So that was a huge blow, especially knowing that we had an outstanding Minnesota team to play and knowing that we had Ohio State and Purdue to follow. We needed to do something like this." As far as the accomplishment of being the first team to win a series against the Gophers in Minneapolis since 2002, Maloney said, "The timing couldn't have been better for us." GOPHERS L Continued from page 116 innings en route to a 2-0 win. 1c e "We had the emotion of winning in come-from-behind (fashion) in the first game (and) losing when you had it in your hands," Maloney said Saturday. "And then to have a gem that (Fet- ter) pitched was just an absolute huge deal." The Wolverines may not have pulled themselves to the top of the Big Ten standings, but taking three of four from the Gophers (3-5, 14-13) puts them ahead of the curve compared to last year's team that began the Big Ten sea- son 1-7. By H. Jose Bosch Daily Sports Writer MINNEAPOLIS - Zero innings, a walk and a double. That's all it took for Minnesota to beat pitcher Chris Fetter and the Wolverines in the first game of Saturday's double- header. Seven innings, a walk and three strikeouts. That's all it took for Fet- 7.o A 0 ter to shut down the Gophers in game two. "I was pretty disappointed after the first game," Fetter said. "I wanted to do anything I could to get that first game back." Fetter hasn't had to worry about too many bad outings to get back from. He sported a 2.70 ERA and 14 strikeouts in 20 innings before Saturday, and he's had a propensity for . clutch performances. Two weekends ago against Northwestern, Fetter entered the fourth inning of game three with Michigan trailing 4-2. The redshirt fresh- man kept his team in the game by throwing four scoreless innings, striking out four and allowing just one baserunner in the process. Saturday, following the heartbreaking loss to Minnesota in game two of this weekend's series, Fetter came back and started the next game, going the distance in a complete-game shutout. "He showed a lot of intestinal fortitude to come back and pitch a shutout when our team needed it," Maloney said. "What he just did was a championship effort." Maloney wasn't sure how Fetter would react to starting so soon after giving up a game- winning hit. But pitching coach Bob Keller convinced Maloney to go with Fetter, and, by the end of the day, neither coach regretted the SUNDAY'S GAME Michigan 2, Minnesota 0 Michigan (19-, 1-0) Minnesota (11-17, 0-3) Player AB R H BI Player ABR HBI Schmidt LF 4 0 0 0 VanderAarde CF4 0 0 0 Colt Rosensweig Mahler SS 4 0 1 0 Lyons SS Kunkel C 4 1 1 0 Mee LF 4 0 0 0 4 0 1 0 Pickens RF 3 0 1 0 VanBuskirk 1B 4 0 0 0 Scheidt 3B 3 1 0 0 Recknagel DH 4 0 2 2 Christian 2B 2 0 0 0 Hunter1B 3 0 0 0 Kommerstad RF4 0 0 0 Baran DH 2 0 0 0 MacLean 2B 3 0 1 0 Maciej 3B 2 0 1 0 Herbert C 2 0 1 0 DeVries P 0 0 0 0 DEFENSE The defense did not make a single error in the Min- nesota series - an impor- tant consideration in tight games like this weekend's. PITCHING Pitching was pretty solid this weekend, especially Saturday and Sunday. The shutouts were key, as the team only managed to score two runs in each of the games and won anyway. OFFENSE Though the Wolverines didn't put up tremendous hitting stats, they came through in the clutch in the Metrodome, where runs are hard to come by. This weekend timely hitting propelled the team to three wins on the road. TOMMASO GOMEZ/Daily Fetter bounced back from a tough outing in game one on Saturday with a shutout in game two. Chris Herring This weekend marked the return of Mahler into the everyday lineup for the Wolverines. The junior was forced to sit out most of the series against Northwestern due to an unspeci- fied injury, according to Maloney. But Mahler showed no signs of favoring either leg while on the field, and his defense looked as impressive as ever this weekend. "I'm feeling much better, and I think the worst of the problems are over" Mahler said. With Mahler back platooning at shortstop, the left side of the infield becomes almost wouldn't have any other shortstop behind me. He makes big plays at the right time. You can't say enough about Leif.' THIS IS SOMETHING YOU WORK ON IN THE OFF- SEASON: In the final inning of the series' sec- ond game, it appeared Minnesota was batting out of order when its No. 8 and No. 9 hitters switched. According to baseball rules, if a team bats out of order, that batter is automatically out. This would have had huge implications for the Wolverines, since they were guarding a Putnam PH Cislo 28 Roblin CF Hess P 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 Abraham P 0 0 0 0 Totals 32 2 5 2 29 0 4 0 R H E Michigan Minnesota 000 000 002 - 2 000 000 000 - 0 5 4 0 I E - Michigan 0; Minnesota 1: Maciej (8). DP - Michigan 1; Minnesota 0. LOB - Michigan 6; Min- nesota 5. 28 - Michigan 3: Mahler (4), Pickens (7), Recknagel (7); Minnesota 1: Maciej (2). 38 - Michi- gan 0; Minnesota 1: MacLean (2). HR - None. BB David Murray