Like a Bill Murray movie, the Buckeyes lose late for the second day in a row, despite a career-day by Tyler Pettorini. USC sweeps the series with a ninth inning comeback.
Los Angeles, CA – Like the Bill Murray movie, the Buckeyes’ fourth loss in a row this week on Sunday looked exactly like something you saw happen…yesterday.
Leading 9-8 as they entered the bottom of the ninth, freshman Gavin Kuzniewski easily retired the first two USC hitters, then gave up a single, walked a batter, and at that point pitching coach Tyler Robinson must have had some ‘Groundhog Day’ flashbacks. He came to the mound, made a pitching change for Charlie Gciese…who threw his first pitch behind the hitter, and hit him with the next pitch to load the bases with two outs. Giese then uncorked a wild pitch on his first pitch to the succeeding batter, only to have catcher Mason Eckelmon sell out to smother it and prevent the winning run from scoring from third.
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Robinson had seen enough, replaced Giese with Zev Salsberg, who ran the count to 2-2 on USC’s Dean Carpentier before Carpentier lined the next pitch he saw into right field to score the winning run….!
USC won it 10-9, improving to 20-11, overall, and 9-6 in the Big Ten.
The Buckeyes dropped to 8-20, 2-10 in the Big Ten, before packing their bags for what had to be the longest five-hour flight imaginable back to Columbus Sunday night.
You can’t say it enough…how resilient this team is offensively. Once again, after falling behind 3-1 in the second inning, the Buckeyes’ bats overcame a 2.2 inning start by Jake Michalak – 5 earned runs on 5 hits, 4 walks and no strikeouts – to tie the game in the top of the third, 3-3.
How did they do it? Tyler Pettorini had one of the best days ever, hitting a home run in the first, and another two-run home run in the third, finishing 3 for 4 on the afternoon and on base five times.
But Sahil Patel, who relieved Michalak, would give up 3 runs on 2 hits and 4 walks in 2.0 innings of work, and by the time the Buckeyes hit in the top of the sisth they trailed again, 8-4.
But in the sixth Reggie Bussey walked. With one out Maddix Simpson scored him with a double. Lipsey singled, Pettorini walked…and first baseman Ryan Miller followed with a towering grand slam homer to send the Buckeyes ahead, 9-8.
Tyler Pettorini homered in the first, homered in the third, finished 3 for 4 for the game and was on base five times.
Again in the seventh they loaded the bases with one out and a golden opportunity to blow the game open and insulate themselves from any thoughts of a Trojan comeback. But Miller struck out, and Mason Eckelman followed with a ground out to first base and the Buckeyes, as it turned out, sealed their own fate.
Nik Copenhaver came out of the bullpen briefly in the fifth to pitch effectively.
Then Luke Carrell gave them two scoreless innings in the sixth and the seventh.
Kuzniewski, who’s gotten progressively more reliable with each appearance, came out of the pen to pitch a scoreless eighth, retiring the side with a pair of fly balls to Bussey in center and a strikeout.
But he was not the same Kuzniewski when he came out for the bottom of the ninth.
Giese was not the same Giese we’ve seen on his better days.
And Salsberg just happened to be the guy on the mound when the inevitable happened – Carpentier’s single to right that scored the winning run.
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Statistically, it was that Bill Murray movie, Buckeye pitchers walking ten Trojan batters, and three of those walks ended up scoring.
They hit a pair of batters, and one of them scored.
And Maddix Simpson got picked off second base in the ill-fated seventh when they left the bases loaded.
They left 12 men on base, identical to Saturday, and 28 for the three-game series.
They return home on Wednesday to play a non-conference game with Kent State (19-10, 10-2 in MAC) in what will probably be one of their toughest mid-week assignments on their second half schedule. The Golden Flashes are hitting .303 as a team and while their pitching started slowly early in the year, Kent always ranks highly among Mid-American Conference statistics by season’s end.
Following Wednesday’s 6 pm game, Minnesota comes to Bill Davis next Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And with half their season in the books at this point the message should be pretty clear by the time the Gophers get to town. It’s not about how we started, it’s about how we’re going to finish.
The season starts now!
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