When University of Toledo baseball coach Rob Reinstetle took over the Rockets job in 2019, he prioritized getting his team to play at Fifth Third Field.
Tuesday night's game against Michigan marked the fourth year in a row that the Rockets hosted a game at the downtown Toledo ballpark, and the now-annual tradition had a bit of a different feel with a Big Ten opponent in the opposing dugout for a midweek contest.
“When I first got hired here, I wanted to play at Fifth Third Field,” Reinstetle said. “We worked it out to play Bowling Green, and that was such a hit with a lot of people coming out and there was a lot of excitement downtown and we are Toledo's team. So I started to think of other ways to do it. I have a hard time getting Power 5 teams to come play at Scott Park. I floated the idea out of playing at Fifth Third Field. I pitched it to [Michigan] to play a home and home and to play here at Fifth Third Field, and they were in so we did it.”
On Tuesday night in front of 1,373 fans, Toledo rallied from four runs down to tie the game, but an unfortunate break and a costly error in the eighth inning helped give the Wolverines a 6-4 victory.
Anthony Wayne alum Garret Pike was 2-for-3 with three RBIs for the Rockets including a big two-out two-run double in the bottom of the seventh inning to tie the game at 4 after Toledo trailed 4-0 at one point.
The momentum was short-lived for the Rockets as Jackson Bergman came on in relief in the eighth and hit two batters. With runners on second and third base with two outs, Mack Timbrook hit a comebacker that struck off Bergman and bounced away. With an out at first unlikely after Bergman ran down the ricochet, he fired an errant throw that allowed a second run to score on the play.
“We can play with anybody, and we are very talented,” Reinstetle said. “We know they are a good team. They are right at the top of the standings in the Big Ten. We played them really well when we were at Michigan. We knew we were going to be on our home turf with good fan support, so we were ready to go. It was a very good college baseball game. We just didn't make some plays and make some pitches late, and that ended up biting us.”
Toledo lost 7-6 in 12 innings in Ann Arbor on March 12 in the first matchup of the teams this season.
On Tuesday night, Michigan took a 1-0 lead in the second inning with a sacrifice fly from Kyle Dernedde and increased the advantage to 3-0 on a two-RBI single from Will Rogers in the third and 4-0 on an RBI single from Cole Caruso in the fourth.
Toledo's Trey Wright notched an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth, and Pike added an RBI double down the right-field line in the fifth.
Then Pike leveled the score in the seventh with a deep drive to left-center that bounced off the wall.
“They brought a lefty in, and I had faced that guy early in the year and I got a heavy dose of sliders,” Pike said. “So I sat on a slider and tried to hit it backside off the shortstop's face and drove it into the gap, and it worked out perfectly.”
Then Michigan got the two difference-making runs in the eighth.
“It was a tough break right after we came back and tied it,” Pike said. “I'm glad Bergman was alright. I thought Bergman might have gotten hurt on the play. The best part of that play was that he was all right.”
At 19-18 overall and 12-6 in the Mid-American Conference, Toledo is in the mix to challenge for a conference title, which is where Reinstetle and the team wanted to be at this point in the season.
“We are playing really well and we are right at the top and within striking distance to win the league,” Reinstetle said. “That's our inevitable goal every year. We've swung the bats extremely well and pitched really good in spots. It was good for a couple of guys to get out on the mound tonight and have some success because we need a couple more arms in our bullpen as we make this last march into the back end of the MAC and into the conference tournament.”
First Published April 17, 2024, 2:39 a.m.
