8 - Tuesday, April 3, 2012 B L3 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily com 0 eball: Position by Position Vrter hey ur- is :he Wolverines get deeper eason. There are a few areas ainty and Maloney has been th different possibilities. ey reiterates that the team r against itself, and in com- o last season, Michigan has . The Wolverines hover ddle of the Big Ten pack in 1 statistical rankings; they as the numerical bottom n nearly every category last s the time for Michigan's layers to step up in Big Ten make up for its mediocre rence results. hovered above .300 but has since cooled off. Second base Maloney had a big void to fill when Anthony Toth graduated after last season, and he has yet to find a per- manent replacement. Though there are three candidates that rotate at second base - redshirt sophomore John DiLaura, freshman Eric Jacob- son and redshirt junior Kevin Krantz - no one has earned the official ros- ter label. DiLaura seems to be the top con- tender, but his declining batting aver- age may get him bumped from the leading role. DiLaura accumulated a promis- ing .600 batting average and .600 on base percentage in his first handful of at-bats. But in the last 11 games, he's gone 4-for-29, which may be enough for Maloney to pull the plug. Third base After spending a summer in the Arizona Collegiate Wood-Bat League, senior co-captain John Lorenz looked refreshed and fit for the season ahead. He has met fielding expectations and he's been a semi-dependable hit- ter - he just hasn't had many stellar at-bats. Though Lorenz posted five RBIs against West Virginia, he went 11 straight games without batting-in a runner. Shortstop Junior Derek Dennis was recruit- ed as the 10th-best shortstop in the country coming out of high school. Though the ranking seemed promis- ing, Dennis was unavailable for three weeks of conference play last year after an ankle injury. Dennis played in the firstsix games this season but is not expected to return to his original post until May because of a thumb injury. He's now making sporadic appearances as a pinch runner, cast and all. Freshman Dylan Delaney has played in Dennis' absence and has started consistently, even with a mea- sly .182 batting average. Right field Sophomore Michael O'Neill had a veteran-like year in his first season with Michigan and continues to set the bar high. His skill level gave the Wolverines an extra edge at the plate, and he has yet to disappoint. O'Neill leads the team with 37 hits, nine doubles and six home runs. Though he recorded multiple hits in 10 of the first 12 outings this season, his hot hitting has been fading little by little. Center field The leadoff hitter, junior co- captain Patrick Biondi, has recently excelled at the plate. He's fulfilled his role getting on base with ease and fre- quency, and he leads the team with a .466 on-base percentage. Before the Minnesota series, Biondi boasted an eight-game hitting streak, including five multi-hit games. His batting average has jumped from .214 to .327 in less than a month. Biondi has an almost-perfect .987 fielding percentage, with only one error this season. He's started every game between O'Neill and freshman Will Drake in the outfield, except against Chicago State, when he experimented at second base. Adding to Biondi's bragging rights are his conference-leading 17 stolen bases, as he climbs Michigan's career stolen-base list. One more will tie him for second place all-time with Jim Durham (1986-89) at 74. Left field In his rookie campaign, Will Drake has proven his worth to the team. He holds much promise in Michigan's rebuilding year with a .333 batting average and .405 on-base percentage. Drake has been the only Wolver- ine to start every game this season in the same position. And his consistent spot in the batting order, following Biondi, shows the left-handed hitter's value. He is tied for sixth in the nation with four triples this season and added to the one-two punch that Biondi and O'Neillpacked last season. Catcher It's been a split between Coley Crank and sophomore Cole Martin crouching behind home plate. Crank divides his time between catcher and designated hitter, and even though his batting average has sunk below .20q, he produces during crunch time. He's tallied 20 RBIs and five home runs this season en route to oth-place on Michigan's career home runs list with 28. Martin's results at bat (.246) haven't impressed anyone, but him learning under Crank will be a long- term advantage. Starting pitching Michigan has three potential aces in the running - senior right-hander Brandon Sinnery, junior right-hander Ben Ballantine and redshirt junior left-hander Bobby Brosnahan. The trio of hurlers has shown' major signs of improvement from last season, which could be credited to the new pitching coach, Steve Mer- riman. Before the Minnesota series, each had recorded at least 34 innings on the mound. Brosnahan posted a 2.10 ERA, Ballantine had tallied 29 strike- outs and Sinnery had been reliable but lagged behind a bit. Maloney did not see weekend starters as an area of concern. But in the first bit of conference action, the pitching staff dropped the ball. Against the Golden Gophers, Sinnery gave up six runs and Ballan- tine and Brosnahan were pulled early after poor performances. Brosnahan allowed 10 hits and eight earned runs in just 1.1 innings of work. To put that into perspective, he had given up just eight earned runs in his first five starts this season. Michigan will face have scant pitching options if this becomes a regular occurrence against Big Ten bats. Relief pitching Maloney has been experimenting all season to find steady relief pitch- ers. Though he has a few in mind, no one has stepped-up to claim a perma- nent spot. Young pitchers, freshman right- hander Matt Ogden and left-hander Trent Szkutnik, have the potential to succeed. In Ogden's last 8.1 innings on the mound, he has allowed only one earned run. And Szkutnik threw 11 scoreless innings and notched eight strikeouts over his last three appear- ances. Since the start of the season, Malo- ney has kept a close eye on the two rookies and waited to reap the bene- fits. This is the perfect time for Szkut- nik and Ogden to pull away from the mediocrity in the bullpen. W0 itcher, sophomore a fair amount of man year, but not th success at the made the tran- Jolverine batting struggles to find ig lineup, Winger h the middle but leanup spot along r Coley Crank. n, Winger posted tting streak and On Baseball: It's time to flip the switch By STEVEN BRAID Daily Sports Writer "Flip it." That was the motto for the season. "From worst to first," the Michigan baseball team proclaimed at "Meet the Wol- verines" night on February 15 - and the players meant it. On that night, the Wolverines were adamant that this season would be different. They talked about how last year was a fluke and how they were certainly not as bad as their 17-37 record indi- cated. They set out to prove that this was no 2011 and that their tenure as the worst team in the conference was over. And through the first week or so of the 2012 schedule, Michi- gan did look like a changed team. It opened up the season 5-2 behind a red-hot lineup and great starting pitching. But then the Wolverines began to struggle, and the los- ing snowballed. All of a sud- den the 2011 version showed up - the offense couldn't hit and the bullpen fizzled in the late innings. At one point, the Wolverines lost seven of eight games, including five in a row. And as they scratched and clawed to a 12-13 nonconfer- ence record, they offered up phrases like, "it's all about pre- paring so we can play our best baseball entering the Big Ten season" and "as long as we can pick it up during Big Ten play, we'll be okay." For them, it's been about the Big Ten season from day one. Well now it's come time for the Wolverines to make good STAFF PICKS The Daily baseball beat predicts the 2012 season These writers guess how Michigan can stack up to the rest of the Big Ten and which players will step up. Gz Glenn Liz Steven Isabella Miller Jr. Nagle Braid Achenbach cia ra21-35 25-26 30-26 19-37 Michiga s Big Ten record 9-15 10-14 15-9 7-17 Michigan'sMVP Patrick Biondi Bondi Biondi Biondi Michigan Offensive Player of the Year Michael O'Neil O'Neill O'Neill Biondi MichiganFreshman oftheYear WillDrake Drake Drake Drake Big Ten Regular-Season Chamnpion Nebraska Purdue Purdue Purdue Big Ten Regular-Season Runner-up Purdue Nebraska Nebraska Michigan State Big Ten Regular-Season Third Place Michigan State Michigan State Michigan State Minnesota BigTenTournamentChampions Purdue Purdue Purdue Purdue Big Ten Tournament Runner-up llinois Michigan State Michigan State Michigan State BigTen MPChad Christensen, Neb Eric Charles, Pur Christensen _Charles Bg Ten Surprise Team Iowa Minnesota Minnesota Illinois Big en Disappointing Team Penn State Mchigan Illnois Mchigan on their bold preseason predic- tion, to finish what they set out to accomplish: collect a 36th Big Ten Championship. But if they're serious about achieving that goal, they'll need to improve - and do it fast. It's time for the offense to show us that the lineup doesn't just consist of Patrick Bion- di, Will Drake and Michael O'Neill. At least one of the three out- fielders leads the team in every major offensive statistical cat- egory, and in many categories, they rank as the top three. Brett Winger, Coley Crank, John Lorenz, Dylan Delany and Cole Martin have slumped terribly since the first two weeks of the season, and none are batting above .265. - It's time for them to prove that they can score runs consis- tently, or at least put the bat on the ball - the team entered Big Ten play ranked first with 200 strikeouts. And it's time for the pitch- ing staff to show us that it can be elite and that it can get a strikeout when it needs one - it ranked eighth in the conference with 142 strikeouts before Big Ten play started. It's time for the erratic hurlers to show us that they can take care of their control issues and limit their "freebies." The pitching staff ranked first in walks given up and wild pitches, with 98 and 30, respec- tively. They also ranked second with 30 hit batsmen. It's time for the relievers to show us that they can be a reliable bunch and close out games on a consistent basis, and that someone can step up and take control of the late innings. Five different relievers have recorded at least one save. The Wolverines don't need to finish first in the Big Ten, they just need to improve enough to finish in the top-six of the con- ference. If they can make the Big Ten Tournament, they will give themselves an opportunity to steal the Big Ten's automatic invitation to the NCAA Tour- nament by winning the confer- ence's postseason tournament. So if the Wolverines want to play their way into a NCAA Tournament berth, this motto can't just be some motivational tactic. It needs to be a necessity for them because it's unlikely that there will be another route to the NCAA's. The Big Ten offers up a chance for a clean slate. So forget about the five-game slide in early March and the current sub-.500 record. The slumping lineup, the inconsis- tent bullpen, the erratic pitch- ing - it all needs to be left in the past. Mycalendar says it's not 2011 anymore. It's time for Michigan to start playing like it. E I I