It's Miller time.
With the Michigan baseball team trailing Penn State, 4-3, yesterday in the bottom of the seventh inning, catcher Andrew Miller stepped up to the plate with two men on base.
Miller was planning to bunt the runners over, but a passed ball by Penn State pitcher Greg Arnold did the job for him, and Miller went to the plate swinging. He got a two-RBI single, starting an 11-run inning for the Wolverines (6-2 Big Ten, 16-9 overall) and sparking them to a 14-4 victory over the Nittany Lions (0-4 in the Big Ten, 11-14 overall).
"I was just trying to hit the ball hard somewhere, put the ball in play," Miller said. "I got a good pitch to hit and just drove it up the middle. I just kind of broke things open for a big inning."
The hit changed the tone of the game.
"That was a great, big hit," Michigan coach Geoff Zahn said. "He was up there to bunt, and then we got the guys over on a passed ball, and then he got the base hit. That was big. He's a kid who'll go up there swinging. He did a great job behind the plate, and I'm happy to see that."
The game started out a little shaky for Michigan, when starting pitcher Luke Bonner allowed three runs on six hits in three innings of work. Freshman Bryan Cranson came in for four innings, struck out three and allowed only one run. Tyler Steketee closed out the game pitching the final two innings.
"I think it was a great team effort," Zahn said. "Pitching kept us in there today, and then we started to swing the bats. We played good defense."
Yesterday's game ended a four-game series sweep of the Nittany Lions. Saturday, the teams got together for a doubleheader, in which each game was seven innings, and the final three innings of Friday's suspended game.
In Saturday's second game, reliever Ryan Kelley picked up the win, going 4 1/3 innings, fanning four. Behind 3-2 going into the bottom of the fifth, the Wolverines scored 15 runs. Right fielder Brian Besco, who hit a homer earlier in the game, had a double, a single and two RBIs in the inning.
The Wolverines won the first game of the series, 10-3. Starter Brian Steinbach went six innings for the win, giving up three runs on two hits and striking out six. Steketee pitched three scoreless innings for his third save.
"(Steketee) came in that first game and saved it for us, and then he came in (yesterday) and finished it off," Zahn said. "We're looking for that guy to pitch in the last couple of innings and seal off the victory."
Steketee credits the weekend's success to the team as a whole.
"I give credit to our hitters," Steketee said. "It's easy to pitch when your hitters score that many runs, because you know you can make a couple of mistakes.
"All I do is go out and try to get ahead of hitters. I think that's the biggest thing in college, get ahead of hitters. Once you do that, you can start fooling around with different pitches."
J.J. Putz, last week's Big Ten pitcher of the week, pitched all of the first game of the double header, leading Michigan to an 8-3 victory.
"I thought pitching was great," shortstop Brian Kalczynski said. "Our pitchers came through, and that set the tone for the weekend."
Everything came together for the Wolverines against Penn State. They outscored the Lions, 49-16, and had only two errors all weekend.
"We've been hitting the ball well, and we're getting good pitching together," Besco said.