Despite three straight defeats in Arlington, Texas in Globe Life Field, Ohio State’s baseball team displayed a positive no-quit attitude and nearly won games against Baylor and Oregon State before losing both in the eighth inning.
It has to be awe-inspiring and a touch intimidating for a college baseball team to walk into Globe Life Field, one of the Taj Mahal’s of Major League Baseball.
And it should be. The massive edifice covers 1.8 million square feet and cost $1.3 billion to plop on expensive entertainment real estate.
As they say, everything is big in Texas.
Hall of fame writer Hal McCoy covers the UD Flyers and OSU baseball for Press Pros Magazine.com.
That’s what the Ohio State University baseball team walked into this weekend to play three games against some of college baseball’s top-shelf programs — the Blanton’s and the Weller’s of the collegiate genre.
The playing field is the same dimensions as their home field in Columbus, Bill Davis Stadium. But when the players look up in Globe Life, they don’t see blue sky and white clouds.
They see 5.5 acres of massive retractable roof.
Intimidating? Has to be.
And it may be the only time any of the current Buckeyes play a game on a major league field.
While that has to be a never-to-be-forgotten memory, the games themselves should be forever eradicated from the memory banks of the mostly young, inexperienced Buckeyes.
They lost all three games: 13-0 to Auburn, 8-6 to Baylor and 12-10 to Oregon State.
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What it should be for the Buckeyes is a learning experience, some things to take away and some things to leave behind.
So far it is a school of hard knocks, with Ohio State’s opponents furnishing most of the hard knocks during a 1-and-8 start to the season.
There is a reason the men who lead college teams are not called managers, as they are in the majors. They are called coaches because that’s what they do.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines coach this way: “Someone whose job it is to teach and improve skills in a sport.”
That’s what first-year coach and Hamilton native Justin Haire has to do. The previous regime did not leave Haire’s lockerroom overstocked with talent.
And it did him no favors with a pre-conference schedule that has a high degree of difficulty— two games at baseball powerhouse Arizona State, a game at Alabama and a game against North Carolina State, their only ‘W’ so far.
That’s why after every mounting loss Haire constantly says, “We have to learn from this and keep moving forward,” or some similar version of that.
Globe Life Field is the 52nd MLB park in which I’ve covered more than 7,000 games, some long ago victims of a wrecking ball.
That perhaps makes me a bit more critical, a bit more harsh than I should be of the college players.
What their mantra should be is be extraordinary at the ordinary. Don’t try to do what you can’t do, but execute the easily-executed basic fundamentals.
College players strikeout a lot, many on bad pitches. So do the pro players, not just as often.
College players make errors on easy ground ball and make rushed errant throws. So does the pro player, not just as often.
College pitchers walk a lot of batters, waste a lot of pitches instead of, as they say, “Go right at ‘em.” So do the pro pitchers, not just as often.
Ohio State’s pitchers, as the losses mount, seem to be fearful of throwing pitches in the strike zone, perhaps hoping to avoid hard contact.
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As Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux put it,“The best pitchers have a short-term memory and a bullet proof confidence.”
Ohio State pitchers seem to let their memories linger on the failures, leading to confidence that can be shattered with a BB gun.
A vivid example is sophomore righthander Jake Michalak from North Royalton, as nice a kid as ever trudged to a mound.
He is talented, owner of great stuff that moves here, there and everywhere and a power-infused arm capable of close to 100 miles an hour. So far, though, Jake Michlak pitches more like Jake from All-State.
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He hasn’t been able to harness his stuff, even though Haire and pitching coach Tyler
Robinson convinced him to dial his fastball back.
As Sandy Koufax once said, “I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and just let them hit it.”
Michalak’s learning curve continued Sunday afternoon against Oregon State. His shoulders were already burdened with an 0-1 record and an 11.12 earned run average when he took the mound.
And he was matched against Oregon State lefthander Ethan Kleinschmit and his 1.64 earned run average.
Michalak was delivered another nerve-shattering, confidence-wrecking lesson. He didn’t last the first inning and gave up four runs.
He remains a work in progess and that progression is in the hands of Haire and Robinson. The material is there, ready to be molded.
As a beat writer for the Cincinnati Reds for more than 50 years, I have seen success and abject failure, players who thought they knew it all and players who knew nothing and were eager to learn.
And I’ve seen highly-paid (overpaid) players and high-payrolled teams give up at mid-season, believing they had no chance, so why waste the effort?
There is none of that with the Buckeyes. They give it all they have, no matter how dire the situation.
In the first game of this AmegyBank Baseball Classic, Auburn buried the Buckeyes, 13-0, and the game was stopped after seven innings, an embarrassing run rule stoppage.
That was enough to make any team board the bus, lock the doors and head for the airport instead of the hotel to await two more games.
But the Buckeyes showed up. On Saturday they trailed Baylor, 4-1, but tied the game, 4-4, in the eighth, a gutsy we-don’t-give-in approach.
Unfortunately, Baylor scored four in the eighth inning to take an 8-4 lead. Now did they quit? That’s the easy way out. They scored two runs in the ninth, two too short. Another loss, 8-6.
On Sunday, against Oregon State the No. 9-ranked D-I team, they fell behind in the first inning, 4-0, and trailed 7-2 after three innings.
With another opportunity to pack the gear and say, “No mas,” the Buckeyes kept grinding —a solo home run by Lee Ellis in the fifth and five runs in the sixth to take an 8-7 lead.
And a full-count bases-loaded walk gave the Buckeyes a 9-7 lead in the seventh.
Luke Carroll, a lefthanded grad student from Davis, CA., struck out the side in the seventh.
As so often happens, it didn’t stick. After a perfect seventh, Carroll put up an imperfect eighth —five runs, including a three-run home run by shortstop Gavin Turley.
And another loss, 12-10, was slapped on the Buckeyes.
But Haire can be proud of his team’s competitive spirit, even with all those hair-raising losses. I’ve witnessed many MLB teams far less competitive and with far less stick-to-it attitudes.
The old college try has not gone the way of the brass cuspidor.
