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The Michigan baseball team has faced tough opponents in the beginning of the season, revealing weaknesses in their pitching rotation. The team has not met expectations and has a losing record. Transfers and freshmen are starting to play more and have shown promise in the field. Mitch Boyd and Jonathan Kim have had mixed performances. It is uncertain who will be the starting pitcher in upcoming games. Good pitching matchups are crucial for the team to win. The struggling offense and pitching rotation are impacting their ability to win consistently. It remains to be seen how the team will manage the pitching workload and improve their performance. Okay, we're sitting down with this year's baseball beat. We're going to have everyone go around, introduce themselves, say their name, and their favorite walk-up song. Hi, I'm Zach, and I think my favorite walk-up song would be Seven Nation Army. Hello, I'm Eli. My walk-up song would probably be Disco Pogo, the German version. I'm Mackenzie, and my walk-up song would be Texas Hold'em by Beyonce. I'm Grace, and my walk-up song would be Mastermind by Taylor Swift. Okay, so jumping into the content a little bit more, they obviously opened up the year playing a ton of tough teams, schools down in the South, some tougher opponents than what they're probably going to see in conference play. What did that reveal about the team, and what have been some trends so far? Well, I think going into the year, obviously, most of the questions lied in the pitching rotation, and I think that those questions have been answered, and not in the way that perhaps Michigan wanted them to be. The lack of depth in the pitching rotation has shown itself. There have been one or two, maybe three, good starting pitching performances. The rest of the games have been done by committee. Just this Saturday, Michigan used 10 pitchers in a single game. If Michigan wants to compete with teams of the caliber that they've been playing, the pitching needs to be stronger than what it has, specifically the starting pitching. I know you guys talked to Coach Tracy about the expectations at the beginning of the season. What were those expectations, and has Michigan met them, gone against them? What he mentioned is that he wanted to see Michigan competing for a Big Ten regular season championship, and so far, as Eli mentioned, they're not hitting that mark. They're 4-8, well under .500, and as Eli said, the pitching is not great. A lot of their lineup is also struggling to hit. There have been some bright spots, but so far, they're off the mark. This is a team that experienced a lot of turnover through the last season, and kind of replaced that through the transfer portal. What have you guys seen through the incoming transfers or freshmen that have been playing throughout these series? A lot of the transfers are starting to get a little bit more time. I mean, you have Will Rogers. He's your starting catcher with two freshmen behind him, so he's the biggest one getting play. In terms of pitching, it's just not really having those transfers. You're looking at mostly freshmen with just Mitch Boyd at the helm of it, but mostly you're seeing some more people getting in the lineup because Tracy Smith is still kind of messing around with where he's putting people, and it still is very early in the season, so we're starting to see more of those transfers getting a crucial role in the lineup than they were a couple games ago. You're also seeing a heavy transfer lineup within the infield. Third base, you have Cole Caruso. Shortstop, you have Kyle Darnetti. Second base, you have Matt Kimbrook, all three of which are transfers. In the outfield, you have Stephen Hrusich, and all four of these players are starting and have been giving Michigan some quality at bat, some quality fielding. Rogers and Hrusich are definitely struggling at the plate, but it's early in the season. You can't really judge. You can look and say, Hrusich is batting 150, Will Rogers is batting 138, although at this point you can't really judge, say that's what their season stats are going to be. But certainly, the new faces have given them a little bit of struggle in the lineup. It's been turning over a little bit, but the transfers have certainly been an important aspect for them, specifically in the field. Going into the season, I think they had two preseason All-Big-Ten players with Mitch Boyd and Jonathan Kim. How have they been playing so far? What have been the trends? Have they been able to look to them in terms of leading and performance on the field early in the season? Yeah, a little bit. Mitch Boyd just pitched the first complete nine-inning game Friday night against UCLA. That was a really standout moment for the season because, as everyone's mentioned, pitching has just been inconsistent, to say the least. Mitch Boyd is also a really good presence at first base when he's not on the mound. His infield defense has been a very consistent and strong component of the team, so that's exciting to see. And then Jonathan Kim has had his ups and downs. He started out the season as a really good cleanup, in the cleanup position, and that was exciting. This past weekend was not the best performance from him, but Trey Seesmith definitely will continue to look to him to bring some consistency to that batting lineup. And then going into the season, they have their first game on Wednesday. Michigan has their first game against Oakland on Wednesday. What can we expect from them, and especially what can we expect from them this season? I think at this point right now, it's that big question of who's going to be your starting pitcher. Just because, as of before preseason, you had Dylan McHugh being named as your Friday night starter, and Mitch Boyd has kind of taken that spot. So in a midweek game, it's really going to come down to who's going to be starting, just because there is that weekend game against Coastal Carolina. So we could be seeing Chase Allen at the plate, or we could be seeing Mitch Boyd, but it will be very game choice by Trey Seesmith. I think another thing to consider there is if they do go with Boyd for the game against Oakland, maybe that does set a precedent for the rest of the season. Maybe he will also start on Friday. How do you manage his arm while also playing him in the field? He is playing first base, so it's not like he's going to be throwing the ball across the diamond very often, but it's just something that we'll have to wait and see on. How are they going to manage his arm? Will he pitch twice a week, potentially? It's still, as we've mentioned, it's still very early, and things are still up in the air about that. And as for the season implications, you have to imagine that, based on what we've seen so far, the game outcome is going to determine very largely on who is pitching. What we've seen so far is the games that they win are the games that they get good pitching matchups. They haven't been able to lean on offensive explosion to really carry them through a game. And so, as for what we're seeing right now, one would have to expect a lot of series splits. If you have a pitcher that has the ability to go out there and win you a Friday night game, as Mitch Boyd showed he did against UCLA on Friday, you can have a Friday night win. But if your back end of your starting rotation can't get you wins on Saturday and Sunday, then you're going to really struggle to rack up wins. Because no matter who you're playing, if the back end of your rotation is struggling, it doesn't matter who you're playing, how well your offense is doing, it's really, really tough to win a game if you can't have a solid pitching performance. Especially when four of their starters are batting under 200. You can have a bad pitching performance every once in a while. Every team is vulnerable to it. Not every team is going to have amazing performances every day, but when you have four guys who are playing a ton, getting up to play a ton, and just not hitting the ball, and you're not pitching well, you're just not going to win games on a consistent basis. And Michigan's going to struggle with that if they don't figure out what's going on there soon. Yeah, I think that a lot of that will be shown this weekend because it will be kind of a long stretch of games when Smith is using upwards of 10 pitchers in one night. Looking at how that depth will stand up when you have a game Wednesday night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, it's going to be interesting to see where he looks to support his team in this longer series. Alright, thank you guys so much for coming on. Thank you.