Unfortunately the Creighton bats were silent on this day (Spomer / WBR)
Corvallis, OR
On a steamer of a day, the Jays stuck out their tongues and tasted their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2012. Boy did it taste bitter.
With ace strike-thrower Mitch Ragan dancing on the OSU orange hill to start, the Wolverines managed to play an effective wait-and-see approach in the early goings, working the native Omahan into deep counts. In the top of the second they touched up the scoreboard on a massive two run shot into right off the bat of Christian Bullock. It was launched into the bleacher seats and it also accounted for Bullock’s second dinger of the year.
Michigan would put up their third run in the next inning on a sac fly to center, a product of some gutsy base running as Ako Thomas tagged from second and trotted into third in the previous at bat.
With a 3-0 deficit, the Jays needed to rely on their bats to start producing, but like a vampire in Alaska in August, they decided to stay put and never dare to venture from whence they came. A base hit here and there, a failed hit-and-run, but nothing that ever accumulated into their typical rally-style offense.
In the fifth, Michigan added their fourth run of the ballgame on a dongshot to right off the bat of Jordan Nwogu. It was a good pitch from Ragan, just outside, but Nwogu hit it off the end of the barrel and the ball carried over the wall.
Although the Jays have been snakebitten all year from failing to get baserunners all the way around to home, that wasn’t necessarily the problem today. They’d work to get a hitter’s count but just lose their aggressive stance while when contact was made it was typically right at a Michigan defender. Perhaps not so much bad luck as much it is just an effective contact-reliant pitcher. Kauffmann wasn’t nibbling, he wasn’t tossing up cookies, he was just simply good. Holton noted after the game that he was “effectively wild,” keying in on the fact that he’d get into hitter’s counts only to crawl back and get strikeouts or weak contact.
In the top of the sixth the Wolverines added another solo dongshot, with first base masher Jimmy Kerr destroying a baseball into the the street over the right field.
Ragan finished by going six innings of five-run ball. He struck out five, walked two, but got touched up for three dongshots.
Jonah Smith came in to relieve in the seventh and gave up back-to-back-to-back two out hits to give the Wolverines a 6-0 lead. That’s just too much for the Jays, right?
Mitch Boyer relieved Smith in the 8th and pitched a relatively clean inning, though he gave up a double and a hit-by-pitch to put runners on first and second. He’d work around it and get the Jays out of the inning still holding that six run deficit.
In the top of the 8th Will Hanafan worked a walk. Unfortunately Kauffmann got both Isaac Collins and Parker Upton to swing and miss on strike three, leading to a Jake Holton ground out.
Ben Dotzler came on to pitch in the ninth and mowed down the Michigan order, giving the Bluejays three outs to score 6+ runs, or at the very least, avoid a shutout.
Creighton again put a runner on with two outs after Jordan Hovey slapped a base hit through the right side, knocking Kauffmann out of the game after his 123rd pitch. Hovey would get to second on a wild pitch after Jack Weisenburger lost the zone. In the end, David Vilches watched a high fastball hit the outside corner of the zone, and the umpire decided to retire him on strikes.
Creighton will look to play the loser of the Oregon State/Cincinnati game at 3:00pm tomorrow afternoon.
