Turns out, Pickens, who went two-for-six with the two biggest hits of the day, was right.

With the Spartans (19-10 overall, 3-3 Big Ten) trailing the Wolverines (15-17, 2-4) 7-6 in the seventh inning in Ann Arbor, Pickens hit a two-out solo home run to tie the game. Six innings later,
Pickens stepped to the plate again, this time hitting a double to bring in the game-winning run on the way to a 10-8 victory that MSU desperately needed.

“You get six at-bats in a game, and hopefully you find two good hits,” Pickens said smiling after the win. “Today, I think I found them.”

As one of four freshmen starting Sunday for MSU, Pickens said he took a simple approach to the plate in the 13th after senior shortstop Justin Scanlon made it to second on a U-M error.

“I just didn’t want to over-press,” Pickens said. “Scanlon is the unsung hero because of his beautiful hustle there to get to second. But it felt good for me because I just tried not to press and hit the ball.”

Picken’s heroics almost never happened, though, as Michigan scored a run in the bottom of the eighth to break a 7-7 tie.

But MSU was able to load the bases in the top of the ninth. And, down to the team’s last out, junior outfielder Jordan Keur faced an 0-2 count against U-M pitcher Matt Ogden.

Keur took the next pitch despite it being close to the strike zone. He was hit on the next offering, bringing home Scanlon and tying the game at eight.

After the game, Keur said he didn’t realize how close that 0-2 pitch was to being the last play of the game until after he went back to the dugout.

“It looked to me like it was up,” Keur said. “The (umpire) thought so, too. The next pitch I get hit, and that was a changing point in the game.”

Sunday’s series finale — after MSU lost 4-0 Friday and 4-3 Saturday — saw various game changing moments.

Neither starting pitcher made it out of the second inning, both giving up three runs in a little more than one inning of work.

Although he didn’t like to see right-handed pitcher Mike Theodore leave the game so early, head coach Jake Boss Jr. said his team had the advantage in Sunday’s game because of a strong bullpen, led by junior Tony Wieber.

Giving up just two hits and no earned runs, Wieber picked up the win by dominating the final three and two-thirds innings of Sunday’s win.

“You look toward the end of the ball game, and maybe we were a little bit deeper in the pen,” Boss said. “(Wieber) hasn’t really thrown much in the last week, so we were able to extend him a little bit, and he’s the best guy we have out of the pen.”

At the plate, MSU stranded 15 base runners, leaving Boss somewhat disappointed in his team’s approach. Still, the Spartans got big hits when they needed them and won a game Boss said MSU couldn’t afford to lose.

“Credit our guys, they stuck with it,” Boss said. “You can’t get swept; those are tough to come back from. It was a tough day at times, but we were able to get it done when we needed to.”