Will Rogers, who was behind the plate playing catcher for No. 4 seed Michigan in the first two games of the Big Ten Tournament for the Wolverines, had thrown five innings of no-hit, shutout ball against No. 1 seed Illinois when head coach Tracy Smith got the chance to rave about his two-way ability.
Rogers, who had tossed nearly 41 innings across 15 appearances prior to Friday, got the start as Michigan got thin on pitching heading into an elimination game. And he turned up tossing a gem through the first half of the elimination game.
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“Those guys are 1000 times better than I was,” Smith said on the Big Ten Network broadcast about Rogers. “But it’s — having done it, it’s hard. It’s hard to do. I’m amazed. Just watching Will — I mean the guy’s caught two games prior to this in the tournament. And here he is out here and throwing really, really well. Impressive. It never ceases to amaze me what he’s been able to do, and certainly Mitch as well.”
The Mitch that Smith referenced was another two-way Wolverines, Mitch Voit, who has been red hot at the plate so far in the Big Ten Tournament.
Through the first two games, Voit had come up with a trio of hits for four RBI, which included one that came as a result of a walkoff walk.
“He’s a dude,” Smith said of Voit. “I just love him as a player. Just his mindset. He always wants to be in the big moment and he’s done it this year for us a lot where he just, he gets the big hit. He may be an o-fer and get looked at a couple times, but when the games on the line, he’s the guy you want at the plate. And he’s just done it all year. So good player, really good player.”
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