Kornacki: Kauffmann Sets Tone, Criswell Closes Door in Super Regional Opener
6/8/2019 7:35:00 AM | Baseball, Features
By Steve Kornacki
LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- You want drama?
The University of Michigan's 3-2 win Friday night (June 7) over UCLA had more than enough of that.
You want history?
The Wolverines also supplied that, getting their first NCAA baseball Super Regional victory since the format was adopted in 1999 and doing it against the No. 1-ranked team in the nation.
It sure didn't come easily, though. The victors had to weather a ninth-inning storm that seemed to come out of nowhere in what had been a three up, three down kind of game.
Michigan (45-19) is now one win away from its first trip to the College World Series since 1984, but the Bruins (51-19) have already shown they can battle back from adversity. They lost the Los Angeles Regional opener last week to Loyola Marymount but battled back through the losers bracket to beat Marymount twice to advance to this weekend.
The fan support for the visitors was off the charts -- resembling the same home-court advantage created by maize and blue Californians when the men's basketball team won the NCAA West Regional in 2018 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
"Let's Go Blue! Let's Go Blue!" they chanted repeatedly in the late innings and particularly the ninth.
"There was roughly 2,000 people here (official attendance 1,904), and you could argue 1,000 of them were for Michigan and had the maize and blue on," said winning pitcher Karl Kauffmann (10-6). "Having that faithful (support) is awesome, and it's great to have it."
Wolverine coach Erik Bakich smiled and said, "We had more here than at Ray Fisher Stadium. There are 40,000 Michigan alums in the state of California, and we just appreciate all of them coming out, and the Alumni Club of L.A. has been big.
"It makes a difference because we hear them. We hear the chants. We hear their support and feel it. It's a tangible thing -- so we really appreciate it."
Bakich met some of the Maize and Blue faithful prior to the game.
Catcher Joe Donovan added, "It felt like a home game. It was louder here and about three times what we get at our home field. So, it was great seeing them, hearing 'Let's go Blue!' as loud as they did."
The raucous fans and game tension came very late in this one.
Kauffmann was mowing through a UCLA batting order that included seven MLB Draft picks as if they were his lawn and it was time to cut. Through eight innings, the Michigan right-hander had given up a walk in the fourth and a single in the fifth.
Nothing else.
"Karl Kauffmann obviously gave us an outstanding start," said Bakich. "I was hoping he'd go the distance, but then a couple infield hits and he had some trouble in the ninth. But that doesn't take away from his excellent performance and outstanding job of generating ground-ball contact and swing and miss.
"That's an outstanding offense over there. He just did a really, really good job."
Kauffmann, who went 8.2 innings in his last start against Creighton in a 6-0 win in the NCAA Corvallis Regional, wasn't able to get his first complete game. But he got his 10th win of the season after allowing two runs on four hits with two walks and eight strikeouts.
"I've seen his stuff better on some days," said Donovan, "and I've seen his accuracy better on some days. But as far as combining both of those things, that's the best I've seen him.
"When you see a guy have a performance like that, it's something called tunneling his pitches. That means the release point of their fastball and all their other pitches is really similar. It's coming out of the same keyhole and then they just drop off. And he's a sinker-slide guy. The sinker goes one way and the slider goes the other, and they look really similar.
"So, he was just able to get a lot of bad, bad contact with foul balls. When you're able to keep everything down, as a sinker-slider guy, that's what you want to do. You get popups and bad contact. It helped him get ahead in the count and put guys away."
Kauffmann was "the best I've seen him" in his biggest game of the season.
Kauffmann and Ryan Garcia, the second-round pick of the Texas Rangers, locked up in a pitchers' duel with a quick pace.
"Short turnarounds are nice," said Kauffmann. "You can stay in your rhythm there, and (I had) command of the fastball on both sides of the plate, two-seamer and four-seamer. I started getting some swing and misses and kept guys off-balance. I was throwing the slider away, and just being able to trust the defense and throw the ball over the plate to minimize walks."
Murphy's Law, however, came to roost at Jackie Robinson Stadium for the Wolverines in the bottom of the ninth inning. Kauffmann walked the leadoff batter on a full-count pitch, and then Garrett Mitchell hit a grounder that Kauffman deflected with his glove to second baseman Ako Thomas. But the ball was slowed so significantly that neither the likely forceout or possible double play came about.
"I kind of didn't know where they (on the infield) had shifted," said Kauffmann. "I got my glove on it, and then it was just kind of on to the next pitch."
So, the Bruins, the No. 1-seeded team in the NCAA Tournament, had runners on first and second and would get the tying run to the plate. Detroit Tigers fourth-round pick shortstop Ryan Kreidler hit a deep fly to center that allowed both runners to tag and move up. Then Chase Strumpf got jammed, but the dribbler he hit toward third base became an infield hit to load the bases.
"I got a weak ground ball," said Kauffmann. "It was just one of those fluky things."
Michael Toglia, the first-round pick of the Colorado Rockies, hadn't gotten the ball out of the infield against Kauffmann, whom the Rockies also drafted as a compensatory pick between the second and third rounds. But Toglia came to the plate with a chance to win the game with one swing. Toglia hit a two-run single to right that wasn't the best result for Michigan, but it wasn't catastrophic.
Toglia said of Kauffmann: "First of all, he's phenomenal. He pitched the ball down the entire game and didn't make any mistakes. When the ball's down like that, he's really hard to square up. And I was fortunate enough to get one up that last at-bat, and I put a good swing on it."
With runners now on the corners, Bakich made the move to the bullpen for Jeff Criswell, who had 24 relief appearances last year as a freshman but became the No. 2 starter by the end of this season and was 7-1 with a 2.82 earned run average.
"It was just part of how we scripted out the game," said Bakich. "'If it's close and we've got a lead, we're going to go to Jeff.' And it just felt like he would give us the best chance."
Kaufmann added, "I knew that was going to be the plan, and I had all the faith in the world in him. He's just the ultimate competitor and doesn't care where he's at. He just wants to get out there and get after somebody. I was talking to him earlier in the year about how he kind of missed that closing role from last year but he's starting this year.
"But he was licking his chops to get in there, and that was about as good as it gets."
Criswell was as cool as the proverbial cucumber.
He kept Jake Pries -- one of five Bruins with 40-plus RBI -- from tying the game with a sacrifice fly. Criswell got him to pop up to shortstop Jack Blomgren.
The fans in the stands behind the Michigan dugout on the first base side rocked the place: "Let's go Blue! Let's go Blue!"
The count was two balls and two strikes on Jack Stronach when he hit a foul popup down the line that left fielder Christan Bullock dove for with Blomgren and third baseman Blake Nelson also converging. But none of them could reach it before it hit the grass.
Criswell got another ball on the mound and rubbed it up. Then he stepped off the rubber as the tension mounted.
"I wanted to step off and take a deep breath," said Criswell, "and just kind of settle in a little bit, and go out there and make a big pitch. That was just what I needed -- a deep breath to re-set and re-focus and get back to it."
Donovan added, "I couldn't hear anything because I was just so locked in on Jeff. It was a changeup call then for Jeff, which is funny because he throws so hard. But he's throwing it really well."
Criswell got Stronach to swing and miss on the changeup to end the drama.
"LET'S GO BLUE! LET'S GO BLUE!" they roared, taking over the stadium.
Criswell's first relief appearance of 2019 resulted in his first career save.
Donovan couldn't figure out how senior reliever Jack Bredeson beat him to it, but Bredeson sprinted to the mound and jumped into the arms of Criswell.
"Jack's always the first one out there," said Criswell. "He's one of the most genuine and best teammates I've ever been around. No matter who it is, he's the first one out there to congratulate everyone.
"It was just a ton of energy out there. We're all really excited right now and feel like we're playing good baseball. Any time you can go out and win that first game (of a best-of-three series), it's big for the team, it's big for all of us to get that first one out of the way and settle in. We're really excited to get back out and play tomorrow."
Criswell, likely to start Saturday night's game, had saved the game ... saved the day, too.
What enabled him to have such success in an unusual role?
Criswell said, "Really, just all the guys behind me. They were standing in the dugout, screaming their heads off. And the fans shouting, all the Michigan people who showed up was awesome. I couldn't have done it without my teammates and those people."
Closing out games involves an adrenaline rush, and Criswell had one that was intensified by the wild surroundings.
Michigan got just enough offense to win and provide Garcia (10-0 with a 1.36 ERA entering the game) his first defeat of the season.
Blomgren singled leading off the third inning, and Jordan Nwogu pulled a two-out double just inside the left-field line to put a pair in scoring position. That brought up Jesse Franklin, who had struck out in the first inning and quickly found himself down in the count, 0-2.
However, he battled to even the count before lacing a high changeup to right for a two-run single.
Garcia said, "We went with a couple fastballs early, and I got the changeup up and he hit it to right field. I tip my cap to him. I made a mistake and he took advantage of it."
Franklin started the scoring with a two-out, two-run single in the third inning.
It remained 2-0 until the eighth inning, when Thomas doubled with one out and quickly advanced to third on a passed ball.
Nwogu was down in the count, 1-2, but was determined to make a difference. He found a pitch he could handle and drove it deep to right field to score Thomas with a sacrifice fly.
It was an insurance run that would prove to be so very crucial.
Criswell closed the door after Kauffmann had come within one inning of handing UCLA its first shutout of the season.
Had Criswell ever seen his rotation mate pitch better?
"Honestly," said Criswell, "I don't think so. He's one of the best starters I've been around, but tonight he was just electric against the No. 1 team. For him to do what he did tonight was incredible and really shows what kind of kid he is, what kind of pitcher he is.
"That's the best I've ever seen him."
Kauffmann set the tone in the historic win. The Wolverines have been to one other Super Regional but lost twice and were eliminated in 2007 at Oregon State. So, they got past one hurdle, fully aware that UCLA remains as the hurdle to their dreams of reaching Omaha.
