Michigan
Eastern Michigan
Michigan to Face Eastern Michigan in Home-and-Home Series
5/1/2018 12:27:00 PM | Baseball
THIS WEEK
Tuesday, May 1 -- vs. Eastern Michigan (Wilpon Complex), 6 p.m.
Live Stats | TV: Big Ten Network
Wednesday, May 2 -- at Eastern Michigan (Ypsilanti, Mich.), 4Â p.m. (start time moved up two hours due to weather forecast)
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ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- The University of Michigan baseball team (25-13, 12-2 Big Ten) will take a break from Big Ten Conference action this week with a mid-week home-and-home series against Eastern Michigan. The Wolverines will first play host to the Eagles on Tuesday (May 1) before heading to Ypsilanti on Wednesday (May 2) for a non-conference road game. Both games are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m., and fans can watch Tuesday's game live on the Big Ten Network.Â
» Following a 1-2 showing at Iowa last weekend, the Wolverines dropped six spots this week to sit at No. 13 in the latest Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll. Michigan earned its first ranking of the season prior to the Maryland series as the Wolverines appeared at No. 16 in the Collegiate Baseball Newspaper poll on April 9, and were ranked as high as No. 7 last week (April 23). Michigan was ranked 13 out of the 15 weeks of the 2017 regular season.
» Tuesday's game against Eastern Michigan is one of just four remaining home games that the Wolverines will play at the Wilpon Complex this season. Other than a three-game home series against Illinois in mid-May, the Wolverines will spend the rest of the 2018 regular season on the road for a total of nine road contests.
» A loss at Iowa on Friday (April 27) in the series-opener snapped a 20-game win streak for the Wolverines, who had not lost a game since dropping their home opener to Lawrence Tech on March 14. The win streak marked a new record under head coach Erik Bakich and is tied for the third longest in program history.
» Prior to its 20-game win streak, Michigan was 4-11 on the season with a .219 team batting average and a 4.66 team earned run average. Since a win against Bowling Green on March 16, the Wolverines have won 21 of their last 23 games, including 20-straight wins before dropping the series at Iowa last weekend.
» With Michigan's lone Big Ten losses coming at Iowa last weekend, the Wolverines sit atop the Big Ten Conference standings with a 12-2 record. Minnesota is close behind in the No. 2 spot with an 11-3 record in conference action, but the Wolverines and Golden Gophers are not set to face each other this regular season.
» The Maize and Blue ranks second in the Big Ten with a 3.23 ERA and boasts a conference-low .224 opposing batting average. All three of Michigan's starting pitchers are ranked in the top 10 in the conference for earned run average. As a team, Michigan's ERA ranks 19th best among Division I programs.
» The Wolverines are led at the plate by junior Jonathan Engelmann, whose .362 batting average ranks eighth in the conference. Freshman Jesse Franklin leads Michigan with nine home runs and a .653 slugging percentage, which ranks third in the conference and leads all Big Ten freshmen.Â
» The Eastern Michigan Eagles enter the week with a 16-24 overall record after dropping a home series to Western Michigan last weekend. EMU sits in fifth place in the Mid-American Conference with a 9-9 record, but ranks tied for second with a .275 team batting average. The Eagles are led offensively by junior Max Schuemann, whose .342 batting average ranks seventh in the MAC. On the mound, senior right-handed pitcher Luke DeVenney leads the pitching staff with five wins and a 2.64 earned run average through 64.2 innings pitched.
» Eastern Michigan is one of the first teams that the Michigan baseball program faced, with the teams' first meeting occurring in 1867. Back then, Eastern Michigan was named Michigan State Normal, and the Wolverines won a high-scoring affair by a score of 42-12. That game was the first of 185 contests between the two programs, and Michigan owns a 121-63-2 edge in the overall series against the Eagles.
» After losing 15 players at the end of the 2017 season, including a program-record 11 in the Major League Baseball Draft, the Maize and Blue added 14 players to its roster in the offseason. The roster additions included 12 freshmen and two junior college transfers that hail from seven different states, and the Wolverine recruiting class was ranked No. 10 by Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball Newspaper, marking the highest ranking for a Big Ten recruiting class.
