“It’s the dumbest, stupidest game you’ve ever known, while being the greatest, most rewarding and hard-to-explain game that you’ve ever known.” – Bill Mosiello (Press Pros File Photos)
It comes down to the last three games, and the last three teams vying for the final spot in the Big Ten Tournament…in Piscataway, New Jersey, of all places.
Columbus, OH – I guess it is what it is, and you are what you are, wherever you are.
But of all places to have your season on the line the Buckeyes find themselves in Piscataway, New Jersey this weekend, a place that has never lived in infamy (as Roosevelt once famously said after Pearl Harbor)…and where one football coach (I can’t remember which) once said, “It’s where dreams go to die.”
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Piscataway just sounds kinda’ nasty, like the lyrics from the Ray Wylie Hubbard song, Snake Farm. Shutter that thought!
But that’s where they are and what they have to do is sweep the series with Rutgers University to at least ensure that they get a spot in the Big Ten baseball tournament that convenes next week in Omaha, Nebraska.
But it’s not as easy as just winning three straight. For you see Ohio State is tied with Michigan State and Maryland in conference record at 10 wins and 11 losses, needing to win three against next-to-last-place Rutgers while Michigan State hosts conference #2, Nebraska, and Maryland hosts conference #11, Penn State.
Rational thinking would tell you that they probably need help, because if Michigan State wins two of three, and Maryland wins two of three, while Ohio State wins three of three, OSU goes to the tournament as either the seventh or the eighth seed. And since OSU didn’t play Maryland this year, and they lost their series to Michigan State…well, they’d better win all three, or two of three and hope Michigan State loses two of three. Anyway, someone’s gonna’ finish seventh and eighth. You can go blind if you think about it enough, so just win, baby!
And will I be there, in person? No, because I’m stuck at home for a medical appointment on Thursday that’s been on the calendar since I signed up for Social Security. The so-called ‘Golden Years’? They suck. But I’ll be in close contact, and you can read all about it on Press Pros, anyway.
Sophomore Landon Beidelschies is a principal factor in the Buckeyes weekend, coming off his best start of the year against Northwestern.
Landon Beideschies will get the starting call on Friday (coming off his best outing of the year against Northwestern) because you can’t win all three if you don’t win the first one, according to Bill Mosiello, and Beidelschies has been their most dominant and consistent starter this year (5-7, 4.33). And frankly, they really have to win the first one because the picture for starting pitching behind Beidelschies has never settled in since opening day back in February. Colin Purcell, Gavin Bruni, Chase Herrell, Gavin DeVooght, and I guess there’s a couple others who’ve had a shot at it…and it just hasn’t been something you hang your hat on.
Rutgers season has been a nightmare. A team with a new head coach that returned some talent from last year (and their best year since joining the Big Ten), the Scarlet Knights are still good enough to make you wonder – 27-23, overall, but just 5-16 in the Big Ten. And in some ways they mirror Ohio State.
They’ve beaten some good teams, including a sweep of UConn back in March.
And they own a win over Nebraska, despite losing two of three in April.
But they were drubbed by Iowa…drubbed by Indiana…and if you look at their pitching you see why. They hit (.308 as a team), but their pitching has been a day-to-day thing, with so many hits and misses it would only confuse if we went into it. Kind of like the Buckeyes.
In fact, their team ERA is better than the Buckeyes…5.65 to 6.15. Youth and inexperience has bitten them squarely in the tush, and the only thing that heals that is the tincture of time, and playing more baseball.
So without being more specific, it’s there for Ohio State…if they pitch and play clean baseball; because I’m pretty sure they’re going to hit – Kaczmar, Pettorini, Okuley, Mershon, Graveline, Cadena, et.al. I’m not too concerned about scoring runs (at West Virginia, Michigan). It’s just those inexplicable times this year when they couldn’t prevent runs (Wright State, Cal Poly).
Editor and publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA sports and Buckeyes baseball for Press Pros Magazine.
God love ’em. It all comes down to these final three games, and I’ll conclude with this.
It’s baseball, and Mosiello says it as well as anyone I’ve ever known – the dumbest, stupidest game that you’ve ever known, while being the greatest, most rewarding and hard-to-explain game that you’ve ever known.
Cliches’?
Anything can happen.
Take one game at a time.
Good pitching beats good hitting.
The team that makes the fewest mistakes usually wins.
You win with people.
Piscataway……
Go Bucks!
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