Gavin Kuzniewski was stunningly good…7.2 innings of 3-run, 1-hit baseball in a losing effort to Michigan in the Big Ten Tournament. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
On a night that saw two of the most dominant pitching performances in 2026 college baseball, Michigan’s Shane Brinham outdueled Ohio State’s Gavin Kuzniewski to end the Buckeyes turnaround season at 30 wins, and fuel unlimited prospects for what comes next!
Different time zone, of course, but Ohio State’s magnificent 2026 baseball turnaround came to and end Thursday night at 9:45, eastern time…8:45 in Omaha. It might as well have been midnight.
The Cinderella story of Ohio State’s turnaround from 13-37 to 30-25 and the pre-season unthinkable notion of a team that would finish May by winning 8 of 9 games, grabbing the #6 seed from Michigan for the Big Ten Tournament, and for at least twenty four hours following Wednesday 3-2 win over Rutgers, having the momentum to reprise their unthinkable tournament triumphs of 2016 and ’19 felt doable.
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But Michigan, the villainous team up north, wasn’t impressed – determined that Ohio State would not beat them four times in a season as they had done in 2016, including the tournament – and outdueled the Buckeyes’ Friday night fixture Gavin Kuzniewski (7.2 innings, 3 runs on 1 hit, 6 strikeouts and 3 walks on 122 pitches) with a freshman lefthander named Shane Brinham to win, 3-0.
Brinham’s line was equally impressive – 9 innings, 125 pitches, 5 hits, 11 strikeouts and 3 walks – the frosh from Vancouver, British Columbia, who recorded his sixth win of the season (6-4), while dropping his earned run average to 3.87. And of course, his sense of timing, couldn’t have been better for Michigan…or worse for the Buckeyes.
For Ohio State, Gavin Kuzniewski pitched like Greg Maddux, identical with his ability to command four pitches, change speeds, and keep Michigan hitters off balance while never breaking the 90 mile per hour barrier on the radar gun. His dominance in the strike zone was so confident that even the strike-stingy umpiring of the Big Ten Conference (plate umpire Mike Lusky) was willing to expand the zone (for both sides) as a tribute to near perfection.
Kuzniewski’s lone blemish came in the top of the third, when after striking out the leadoff hitter, he walked the next two hitters, then hit a batter to load the bases, then surrendered an RBI single to catcher Noah Miller that scored two runs. It would be the only hit allowed by Kuzniewski for 7.2 innings of work. From that point on he retired fourteen hitters in a row until a two-out error by shortstop Henry Kaczmar on a high-chopper ground ball by Colby Turner in the top of the eighth. Kuzniewski followed that at bat with a walk of third baseman Brayden Jefferis, and his night was done…replaced by reliever Ryan Zamora who would come on to face Noah Turner, hoping to secure the third out.
That was not to be. Miller played spoiler again by ramming a single to right field, scoring Turner, increasing Michigan’s lead to 3-0.
It might as well have been 30-0, given the equally impressive work of Shane Brinham.
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Brinham totally neutralized the Buckeyes hitting attack with his command of a sharp-breaking curve with good depth that he routinely threw for first-pitch strikes. By doing so he made Buckeye hitters respect it so much that they lost aggression to hit the fastball. One after another simply stood and watched called third strikes, anticipating the curve while Brinham poured a heater right down High Street.
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And of course, when they did swing at Brinham’s fastball, which topped at 94 mph, they were just late enough that they could not make hard contact. All five of the Buckeyes hits – 2 by Maddix Simpson, 1 by Noah Furcht, 1 by Mason Eckelman, and 1 by Miles Vandenheuvel – were singles. They never came close to an extra base hit, and in fact…very few hard-hit balls.
There are no moral victories when you’re eliminated from something, but Gavin Kuzniewski’s 1-hit performance was so impressive that when he came out or the game in the top of the eight Michigan’s third base coach Jake Valentine approached him as he walked to the dugout to offer congratulations on his stunning mound mastery.
The loss concluded what can only be termed as an anti-climax to what must be the most engaging Buckeyes baseball season since their 2019 Big Ten Tournament win and their last NCAA Regional appearance at Vanderbilt University – the last time that an Ohio State pitcher named Andrew Magno would totally capture the respect of a tournament audience by pitching 7.1 innings of relief, striking out 12 hitters, to nail down a 9-8 Buckeye win over McNeese State.
But it also is to be viewed in terms of the unlimited prospects – at least for now – of what comes next following the Buckeyes improbable 17-game-improvement high in 2026, and over the historic low of a 13-37 finish in 2025.
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Because…who stays? Who goes? And is the historic turnaround enough to induce the core of this program to pursue one more, greater step in 2027…as a Buckeye? This is, after all, the day of playing for ‘alms’, and not alma mater.
What are the draft prospects for those eligible, like Henry Kaczmar and Mason Eckelman…Chris Domke and Pierce Herrenbruck?
As much as Justin Haire enjoys extolling the colloquial home-grown virtues of his clubhouse, and the values that come with being a Buckeye, we’ve also come to know the grass now comes in so many different shades of green. The only thing that’s certain with college baseball is the uncertainty that comes just when you think you’ve figured it out.
But for now, at least, celebrate one crazy, captivating season of optimism for the future, and the image of that indomitable confidence of Pierce Herrenbruck and Gavin Kuzniewski standing on the Charles Schwab mound in Omaha with a season on the line.
Right there with the best from tournaments past – Tanner Tully, Ronnie Dawson, Andrew Magno, Dom Canzone, and Dillon Dingler.
O-H, indeed!
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