Kauffmann Overcomes Top Hitters, Health Challenges to Shine for Wolverines
5/13/2018 9:03:00 PM | Baseball, Features
By Steve Kornacki
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Karl Kauffmann has the quality "stuff" to retire the best hitters the Big Ten has to offer.
Exhibit A came in the third inning of a 5-4 win over Illinois that took 11 innings to decide. Kauffmann was faced with a big challenge against two powerful hitters who had the chance to break the game open, and came up big for the University of Michigan baseball team.
Kauffmann has risen above so much from his freshman season -- when he battled a collapsed lung, pneumonia, mononucleosis and an allergic reaction that caused his fingers to become puffy -- to become a special pitcher who overcomes obstacles on the mound as well.
He walked only two batters Sunday (May 13), but both came to the eight and nine batters leading off the third inning. Illinois then executed a sacrifice bunt to put both in scoring position, and a single that scored one.
Michigan's two-run lead was in serious jeopardy, and a potentially big inning was set up with the meat of the Illini batting order coming up.
The massive Bren Spillane strode to the plate first. Kauffmann had struck him out on a fastball in the first inning, but no pitcher gets the best of Spillane with any regularity. He's batting .417 with 20 homers and 55 RBI, and leads the Big Ten in each of those Triple Crown categories.
Kauffman got him to again go down swinging, but this time on a low slider.
"We watched film on him and found what we thought were holes in his swing," said Kauffmann. "And I just wanted to come out attacking. Every single pitch I threw. It wasn't shying away from him, it was going right at him. That mind-set played a big role."
Then the cleanup hitter, Michael Massey (.330 and 40 RBI), had his shot to tie the game or put Illinois ahead. Thanks to a steal of second base, he now had two runners in scoring position with two out.
Kauffman got him, too. Massey went down swinging on a low changeup in a full count.
"It was the same thing as Bren," said Kauffmann. "You've got to attack him, and I got behind in the count. But I put the changeup on the plate and just hoped. Again, I just had to trust it."
The development of his changeup has been a difference-maker for the hard-to-hit right-hander.
Wolverine head coach Erik Bakich said: "Illinois is the best offense we've seen this year, a veteran offense, and you need that changeup. It's an equalizer pitch. If you have command of it, you generate a lot of swings and misses and weak contact. To throw that pitch effectively all day was the key to a quality start.
"They're a dangerous club, and Karl did a terrific job there."
Kauffmann, an All-American from Bloomfield Hills (Michigan) Brother Rice, has earned a rotation spot with consistently excellent to good outings. He's 6-foot-2 with a 2.78 earned run average and 70 strikeouts with 27 walks over 68 innings.
"He's a premium talent," said Bakich. "He was a highly-touted prospect out of high school that could've gone anywhere. But it's one thing to be a prospect because you've got a good arm and you can throw it in the low 90s (mph). It's another thing to be able to be a pitcher and manipulate the baseball, and make your fastball move and have a couple of different breaking balls and a changeup.
"The evolution of Karl is to really get good running sink on the fastball, and then be able to use different off-speed pitches as weapons. Against Illinois, the changeup worked better for him. Against Penn State and Rutgers, he had the slider working really well."
That sinker-slider combination, added since last season, has helped him keep hitters off-balance.
"I worked with Coach (Chris) Fetter on that in the fall and became so much more comfortable with those pitches," said Kauffmann. "It's to the point where 90 percent of my pitches are those two."
Kauffmann said he learned plenty last year from pitching coach Sean Kenny, and has continued on his knowledge path this season with Fetter, whom he credits for putting together precise and accurate game plans.
"I was a big Coach Kenny fan," said Kauffmann. "But Coach Fetter has been everything, and then some. Coach Fetter puts together a great (game plan) for everyone. It's just trusting everything you've done up to this point. You've just got to trust your stuff, and I did a pretty good job of that today. He's so relatable and has been huge for me and revitalized me with a joy for baseball and being on the mound."
Kauffmann was erratic in his first four starts. He gave up seven runs in four innings against Cal Poly and four runs in 4.2 innings against Lipscomb.
But in between those outings, Kauffmann left a calling card for what the future could hold. He beat No. 8 Stanford, 5-0, striking out 10 and allowing just three hits in 6.2 innings. The five walks were too many, but none resulted in a run.
Kauffmann has been ultra-reliable the entire Big Ten season. He's 3-0 in six starts, and over seven appearances has a 2.09 ERA with each outing between five and seven innings, with only one start allowing more than two runs. That was a five-inning, three-run no-decision effort at Iowa.
He was limited to 12 relief appearances that covered 13.1 innings as a freshman, and posted a 2.03 ERA during a season when the biggest challenge was simply being healthy enough to take the mound.
"I missed the whole month of January and February because I had a collapsed lung," said Kauffmann. "I'd had pneumonia and there was a lot of fluid in there. That turned into mono, and together with the collapsed lung knocked me out for about a month and a half. Then I had allergic reactions and my hands were puffing up, and I missed two or three weeks at this time last year.
"So, it was just a constant battle. That was no fun."
However, he's now back and better than ever on the mound. He loved that more than 20 family and friends attended Sunday's game, cheering him and the Wolverines on to a victory they needed to stay in contention for their dreams.
Michigan (32-16, 15-5 Big Ten) has gone 8-5 since having its 20-game win streak broken in late April, but remains one game behind first-place Minnesota (16-4) heading into the three final regular-season games at third-place Purdue (14-6). And then there's the Big Ten Tournament in Omaha, Nebraska, followed by what the Wolverines hope will be a second consecutive NCAA Tournament bid.
"We have three games left and the chance to continue our season," said Kauffmann. "Purdue is a big series for us. It's been a season of ups and downs, but it's just about trusting everything we've done leading into the last few weeks.
"We just have to close strong, and play like we always play, not try to change anything. We need to trust the process of how we started out (with a 4-11 record) as a young team, and trust everything we've done and prepared for. I mean, we won 20 straight. Like Coach (Bakich) says, we can do anything if we put a streak like that together.
"It's exciting because there's so much potential here, and it's a great mix of guys."
Kauffmann is near the top of that "mix," a pitcher who has not only survived a physically-challenging freshman year but thrived as a sophomore.
