Starting pitcher Gavin Bruni took the next, and the first step for 2024, pitching five innings of 2-run, three-hit baseball, striking out 6 USC hitters without a walk. (Press Pros Feature Photos by Sonny Fulks)
For a second day in a row the pitching allowed no walks…the offense came through with the timely hits…and the new blood on this 2024 roster continued to make a positive impression in Sunday’s win over Southern California.
Mesa, AZ – What was it that Yankee great Yogi Berra was fond of saying: “It’s like deja vu all over again?”
And Ohio State coach Bill Mosiello phrased it more succinctly Sunday night by admitting…that if one is good, then two is even better.
What he meant was…for a second day in a row the Buckeyes’ pitching staff threw a nine-inning winning effort without allowing a base on balls…allowing just five hits…making eight timely hits mean something…and again benefiting from the infusion of new faces making the most of an opportunity to play.
Publisher/editor Sonny Fulks writes the Big Ten and Buckeyes baseball for Press Pros Magazine.com.
That was the crux of the Buckeyes’ second consecutive win, taking two of three games played in the MLB Desert Invitational, capped by Sunday night’s 5-2 win over 12-time national champion Southern California.
“When you pitch you’ve got a chance to win,” said Mosiello. “When you become good you don’t have to play great to win. So we played good enough to win because our pitching was outstanding throughout.
“Bruni gave us five good innings as starter, Gavin DeVooght was outstanding throwing strikes, Blaine Wynk is strike thrower, too, with good stuff, and that’s what we anticipated. And then Justin Eckhardt closes. Baseball is so dumb, Eckhardt hasn’t walked anyone in about three months and I thought ‘he’ll be the one that ends up walking someone’ when he had a 3-ball count [on his second hitter]. But he got out of it.”
But to the people back home reading this, for a second day in a row the evolution – the new guys – the freshmen and the transfers – made their presence felt in a big and timely way as Mosiello tweaked the lineup for the sake of on-the-job evaluation.
Fjelstad’s first hit as a Buckeye. The freshman from Orange County, California went 1 for 3 and played flawlessly at third base.
Zach Fjelstad had three good at bats and played an impressive third base, as Tyler Pettorini moved to the DH position.
Mason Eckelman made his first start behind the plate and got rave reviews from the coach.
Transfer Josh Stevenson (LSU) was 1 for 4 at the plate but hit the ball hard twice without reward.
Freshman Gavin DeVooght made his Buckeye debut with two scoreless innings, gave up a hit and struck out two. His best fastball registered 95.
And transfer Blaine Wynk, from Miamisburg, needed just seven pitches to pitch a scoreless eighth to set up Eckhardt in the ninth.
“Zach Fjelstad had a good night for us at third, he’s a tough cookie, and he’s earned playing time, even with Pettorini playing as well as he has at third base. We may have created a situation, but Pettorini is going to be back in there.
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“Eckelman caught a heckuva game…the two freshmen were good for us tonight. Okuley’s off to a better start, had a couple of hits tonight, so we have some depth in our lineup and that’s good, because guys are going to struggle from time to time and we have the people there to pick them up.”
Henry Kaczmar’s double in the fifth drove in two, gave the Buckeyes a 3-2 lead.
Gavin Bruni was outstanding for the first five innings, pitching through the one jam, a two-run push by USC in the fourth inning when a pair of back-to-back doubles and a following error created the threat of an even bigger inning. He calmly pitched his way out of it, showing the kind of mature makeup he now has in his second year as a weekend starter.
“I felt great,” said the junior from Alliance. “It was a good team win. For me it was a maturity factor and a presence for me in the fourth inning where I needed to keep my composure. I was happy with the five innings and the fact that a lot of good things are showing up for us. Big shout out to Zach Fjelstad and how he came in as a freshman and played well tonight.”
He finished by giving up the two runs on just three hits, struck out 6 and didn’t walk a batter.
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The Buckeyes countered with a run in their half of the fourth, scoring on a sun field double by Okuley, a walk, and an RBI single by Josh Stevenson, his first as a Buckeye.
They added two more in the fifth on a single by Lipsey, a gap double to left by Kaczmar, a hit batsman, and a walk to Ecklelman to force in a run, and took a 3-2 lead.
DeVooght came on to relieve Bruni with a scoreless sixth and seventh, again clean of walks, allowing 1 hit, and rang up a pair of impressive strikeouts.
Wynk, a transfer from the University of Findlay, is getting attention for his ability to throw strikes and with surprising velocity on the fastball. He needed just seven pitches to retire the eighth inning on successive grounds balls to third, short, and third again, and reached 96 on the scoreboard radar gun.
The Bucks added an all-important insurance run in the eighth on a pair of USC errors, an intentional walk to Matt Graveline…and then a clutch sac fly to left with two strikes by Pettorini, a professional piece of hitting.
And in the ninth, Justin Eckhardt, who’s battled through arm trouble at the University of Texas, last year’s transfer to Ohio State and a season-long settling-in period before catching fire in the season’s last three weeks…polished off the night with a ground ball out to the mound, a double by USC catcher Jacob Galloway, a weak popup to first base, and a strikeout of designated hitter Kevin Takeuchi, the final out of the game.
Josh Stevenson hit the ball hard three times, this single in the fourth accounted for a Buckeye run.
The Buckeyes won it with 5 runs on 8 hits an committed 2 errors.
The Trojans fell to 0-3 for the season with 2 runs on 5 hits and committed 2 errors.
Gavin Bruni takes the win, his first…and Justin Eckhardt got the save, likewise, his first.
“Tonight felt good,” said centerfielder Josh Stevenson, who had just one hit to show for hammering the baseball repeatedly. “I felt good in the box, I was seeing pitches well, and I hit the mistakes when they threw ’em.
“Lot of good things are happening, you can see it forming, and back-to-back days with no walks from the pitching staff. If you want to win in baseball that’s where it starts. Both our starters, yesterday and today, went out and dominated, the hits are coming, and the closers came in at the end and did their job.”
Miamisburg High School’s Blaine Wynk needed just seven pitches in the eighth to set up closer Justin Echardt for the ninth.
And true to Mosiello’s words, freshman Zach Fjelstad simply expressed gratitude for the opportunity to play and contribute. He finished 1 for 3 and scored two of the team’s five runs.
“I’m super grateful that ‘Mo’ gave me this opportunity,” said Fjelstad, from Santa Margarita High School in Orange County, California. “I didn’t have a great fall, he stuck with me, and I’m grateful for that. If I hadn’t got those extra at bats during the winter I probably wouldn’t be here.
“I couldn’t ask for a better team, and guys here, even being young, have taken me under their wing. This is everything I could ever ask for.”
The Buckeyes improve to 2-1 with Monday off before starting a five-game run – a single game with Grand Canyon on Tuesday, followed by four straight with Arizona State, Thursday the 22nd through Saturday, the 25th.
“Our goal is to continue to get better each day,” says Mosiello. “I don’t like to say we’re happy with taking two out of three, but after how we played on Friday, I’ll take two out of three. 
VPP Industries helps your business grow. Let us help you deliver your message.“Now we worry about taking it one day at a time, because it’s not getting any easier. Grand Canyon is outstanding, and Arizona State is really swinging the bats well. So we’ve got our work cut out. Good win today (over USC), and I hope they have a great season because that makes it a big win for us.”
Additional Notes:
Senior Justin Eckhardt closed out the ninth, recording his first save of the season.
For a second day the pitching staff sparkled, improving that all-important strikeouts-to-walk ratio. In the last 18 innings…19 strikeouts, 0 walks!
Two significant hitting stats to report from the USC win…Trey Lipsey and Mitchell Okuley both had two-hit games, collecting four of the team total of 8 hits for the game. It raised Lipsey’s average to .250 for the three-game series, and jumped Okuley to .231.
Tyler Pettorini finished 1 for 3 in the game, with the sac fly in the eighth, to raise his team-leading average to .417.
The Ohio State pitching staff, through three games, has recorded an ERA of 3.33, 27 strikeouts to 10 walks, and has held opposing hitters to just a .204 average.
The Buckeye bullpen has been even better. The five first-year pitchers – Brown, DeVooght, Shaw, Wynk and Michalak – over 11 innings of work have an earned run average of 1.63!
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