Irish On Midweek Mission To Michigan

April 3, 2017

By Michael Scholl

Five Things To Know

• The Notre Dame baseball team travels to Michigan for a midweek showdown with their nonconference rivals. First pitch at the Wilpon Baseball and Softball Complex’s Ray Fisher Stadium is set for 7 p.m. The contest can be seen live on BTN Plus, with the radio call available on WatchND and 103.1 FM in the South Bend area.
• Tuesday night will be the 135th meeting between the Irish and Wolverines on the diamond. Michigan holds an 87-47 advantage in the series, including a 42-9 series lead in Ann Arbor. Last season at Frank Eck Stadium, Notre Dame won a 9-5 decision from the 17th-ranked Wolverines, with Michael Hearne allowing just one run in seven innings of work. Ryan Lidge and Jake Shepski each had a pair of RBI in the effort. The last meeting in Ann Arbor was also an Irish win, that one by a score of 9-1 in 2014.
• Notre Dame’s first-ever baseball game was against Michigan, a 6-4 Irish win on April 21, 1892. With 133 more meetings since the only program the Irish have faced-off with more is Michigan State (138 games). Michigan and Michigan State are on a list of eight teams Notre Dame has faced over 100 times, joined by Indiana, Purdue, Northwestern, Detroit, Western Michigan and Wisconsin (program discontinued after 1991 season).
• The Irish continued to ride strong pitching as they rebound from a 1-8 mark to start the season. Since those first nine games, Notre Dame has posted a 9-8 record. Defense and pitching have been a major reason for the turnaround. After committing 20 errors in the first nine games, Notre Dame has made just 16 miscues in the 17 games since. The team ERA improved from 7.85 over the opening stretch to 3.24 over the last 17 contests, while the opponent batting average dropped from .316 to .222.
• After the trip to Michigan, the Irish are scheduled for an exhibition game with the Midwest League’s South Bend Cubs on Wednesday, April 5, at 6 p.m. Notre Dame will visit Four Winds Field in downtown South Bend to take on the Class-A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, with tickets costing just $5 and proceeds benefiting a charity of each team’s choice. Notre Dame will be playing for the Pete Frates #3 Fund, the same charity which will benefit from the team’s annual Strikeout ALS game later this year.

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Michael Scholl joined Fighting Irish Media in August 2016, coordinating communications for the baseball program and assisting with the football team at his alma mater. The South Bend native earned a degree in political science from the College of Arts & Letters in 2009 before going on to work in athletics communications at Providence College, Vanderbilt and Cincinnati.