Lonely start for Gavin DeVooght and the Buckeyes…Indiana scored five times to chase the Buckeye freshman in the second inning. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
As well as they played in Tuesday’s win over Nebraska, Ohio State did a complete 180 Thursday in a bad 14-7 loss to Indiana.
Omaha, NE – There’s no sugar-coating it. It was bad baseball, and hard to find the positives.
The Buckeyes (29-25) did a complete about face from Tuesday’s 15-2 run-rule effort over #2 seed Nebraska Thursday, to lose in one of their sloppiest performances of the year, 14-7 to Indiana (32-22).
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The loss cost them a bracket advantage with a day off Friday, valuable time to rest a frazzled pitching staff.
It had to have cost them confidence, or swag, when you consider the lack of clean baseball and execution with men on base in scoring position.
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An now it puts them squarely in the sights of Nebraska in a Friday elimination game, with what Bill Mosiello said in Thursday’s press conference: “They’ll be infuriated over what happened Tuesday.”
How did it happen?
Lack of starting pitching, which Mosiello has credited from day one for its importance to a team’s chance on the field. Freshman starter Gavin DeVoogth came out hot, retiring the side in 1-2-3 fashion.
But after the Buckeyes failed to score in the bottom of the first, DeVooght did his own about face.
“You really can’t explain it,” said Mosiello in the post-game presser. ” With our lack of bullpen depth our starting pitching is really important, and if we can’t make it out of the second inning it changes the whole world for us.
After tying the game at 5-5, Indiana scored 7 times over the final four innings, including this home run by IU’s Devin Taylor, to win 14-7.
“He’s a freshman, you’re hoping you’re going to get that good Gavin DeVoogth, and he’ll have to learn from this. Your heart goes out to him…because how do you go from the first inning to hit a batter, a walk, hit another batter and you’re down 5 runs before you can look up.”
Indiana took full advantage, scoring five second inning runs and chased DeVooght with two outs, and with his pitch count approaching 50. Chase Herrell came into the game, prematurely, and proceeded to pitch 2.1 innings of scoreless baseball, giving up a hit while striking out 2 and walking 3.
Inexplicably, the Buckeyes took advantage of Indiana’s own starting pitching issues, scoring four times in the bottom of the third off Connor Foley, and without benefit of a hit – on two walks, a hit batsman, a fielder’s choice, and a ground ball out…5-4, Indiana.
An inning later, after a scoreless top of the fourth by Herrell, the Buckeyes tied the game on singles by Joe Mershon, a walk, and a single by Ryan Miller to drive in Mershon, and a following single by Josh Stevenson. But then…three strikeouts with men in scoring position.
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Blaine Wynk came on in the fifth with the score tied at 5-5, but the Buckeyes’ recent string of clean baseball came to an end when Mershon booted a ground ball by the leadoff man, then a single, a second ground ball error by Mershon, and a throwing error by Ryan Miller on a force out at first and an attempted tag play on a runner at second for the third out. Miller’s throw was about ten feet high, and Kaczmar had no shot at making the tag…7-5, Indiana.
With clean baseball important to the efficiency of the bullpen arms, that all came undone at the expense of Blaine Wynk.
Joseph Merson scores in the Buckeyes’ 4th on Ryan Miller’s single, but they left the bases loaded three times.
“He gave us our shot, so we had to bring him in at that point (5-5) to get us as far as he could,” said Mosiello. “Unfortunately the errors and the sloppy baseball kept him (Wynk) out there longer, and made him throw too many pitches. We burned him up for the rest of the tournament.”
Indiana scored another single run in the sixth off Wynk, and four in the eighth – including a moon shot home run by the Hoosiers’ Devin Taylor – and again as a result of sloppy baseball. Wynk left the game after 3.2 innings with what had to be his most frustrating performance of the year – 7 runs on 7 hits (just 3 runs earned) with a pair of strikeouts.”
“He’s the real deal,” said Indiana coach Jeff Mercer of Wynk. “He threw consistently in the mid-90s, he’s a great arm out of Miamisburg (High School), and he came from a good program at Findlay (University). He’s going to be a good one.”
More examples of sloppy baseball…the Buckeyes would leave the bases loaded three times, striking out for the final out, including in the eighth, when they scored two to cut the margin to 12-7, but Mitchell Okuley fanned on a high fastball from Indiana reliever Brayden Riesdorph to limit the damage to a pair of runs.
Indiana came right back to atone for those runs with two more in the ninth off Hunter Shaw, the Buckeyes’ fifth pitcher of the day to conclude the scoring in a most forgettable 54th game of the season.
Ohio State had 7 runs on just 6 hits, and committed 4 errors. Blaine deserved a better fate, but suffered his first loss of the year (2-1)
Indiana had 14 runs on 14 hits and had no errors.
Josh Stevenson would later say in the press conference…”that you just have to flush this, forget it as best you can, and come back tomorrow ready to play.”
But there’s a lot to flush.
Left fielder Trey Lipsey struck out four times.
Mitchell Okuley fanned three times.
Isaac Cadena went down three times.
Matt Graveline…twice.
“We couldn’t take advantage of 13 walks and 2 hit batters.” – Bill Mosiello
In all, the Buckeyes would strike out 13 times, negating 13 WALKS by Indiana pitching. It was probably the biggest example of opportunity lost all season.
And now…flush it quick because they meet Nebraska for the second time in four days on Friday in yet another elimination game.
“They’re a good hitting club with power,” said Mosiello of Indiana, concluding the press conference. “But we played sloppy baseball, and we couldn’t take advantage of 13 walks and a couple of hit batters…that’s what makes this such a crazy game. If I could figure it out it wouldn’t happen. I should have been a fisherman.”
How now to get ready for Nebraska?
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“If we could bring Beidelschies back to throw again I would. But we can’t,” said ‘Mo’.
“It’ll be a completely different day, completely different matchups, and I’d love to see a bad version of them again, but that won’t happen.
“They’re too good and too consistent a ballclub. But it’s gonna’ be fun, I hope they have a good crowd again, and I’m sure they’re infuriated over [what happened] the other day, but it won’t matter because they wanted to beat us then, too. We were just lucky to play really good baseball and never gave them momentum.”
That game tips off tomorrow at 3 pm EST, with Matt Andrews and Bob Spears on 1460 WBNS, AM.
“Who could ask for anything more,” said Mosiello.
Than an opportunity to beat the #2 seed…twice!
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