Stunning starting pitching from Gavin Kuzniewski, Chris Domke (above) and Pierce Herrenbruck have proven that the Buckeyes, on a good day, can compete with anyone. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Their three-game weekend sweep of second-place Nebraska was stunning, exciting, and confidence-building. But coming off being swept two weeks ago by fifth place Purdue, can you make more of it than…your chances are better when you can pitch!
Come Monday morning following Sunday’s 10-1 win and series sweep over the Big Ten’s second best team, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, an email arrived from a central Ohio reader with numerous copy/pastes from the column I posted about the baseball Buckeyes back on February 1st, two weeks before their opening weekend against St. Louis.
“I thought you might enjoy reading it,” this person wrote. “And I wonder what you’d write about 2026 now, given the weekend?”
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And one of the things that I wrote in February was that even .500 baseball in 2026 could seem monumental given improvement over last year’s 13-37 (.260 win percentage) – that Justin Haire might have bargained with the devil for that deal.
Remembering, too, that the Buckeyes lost six games due to bad weather last year, and didn’t play the full 56-game schedule. That said, consider at the current pace a 15-game improvement, because at 24-21 after Sunday’s banishment of the Cornhuskers the Buckeyes are just one game shy of my original assessment.
But this person also added the following statement from that column: “You can’t win if you can’t pitch. And in a word, the 2025 Buckeyes didn’t – allowing 447 earned runs, walking 352 batters, hitting 94 others, and issuing 88 wild pitches. And they did all that in a matter of 50 games and 418 innings, six fewer than the normal 56-game schedule.”
Now some took those words as rubbing it in…that it was unnecessary to remind the beleaguered pitching staff of its ineffectiveness. But baseball is a game of numbers, and you can’t ignore them, or pay tribute only when they shine on you. Baseball, in a word, can be…humbling.
College baseball, in particular, can be HARD, and as we know now, 97 mph is 97 mph wherever you find it. And try hitting it with a stick that’s 34 inches long and 3 inches wide…from 60 feet and 6 inches! It’s been declared since 1869 that hitting a baseball is the toughest single skill to master in all of sport.
Sophomore Gavin Kuzniewski delivered his best performance as a Buckeye…8 innings, 1 run, 4 hits against Nebraska.
So back to the present, and Justin Haire’s own words from that column, when he admitted: “Our floor, pitching-wise, was so low last year that we were almost underwater, and it was not fun. This year we feel like we have more guys who will contribute in a meaningful way.”
Can you say…Gavin Kuzniewski, Chris Domke, and Pierce Herrenbruck?
The Buckeyes’ starting trio for the weekend limited the powerful Nebraska lineup to just 4 runs and 12 hits over 22 innings pitched. And that degree of improvement over last year, or even the first month of this season, can barely be measured in conventional terms. This time last year Kuzniewski’s earned run average was hovering around 8.00. Currently, he’s at 4.97 and is on pace to cut his walks about 35% from last year. Domke and Herrenbruck, of course, weren’t even here, having transferred in over the off-season.
But then consider this. Last year’s cumulative ERA for the staff was just a fraction under 10.00. Currently it stands at 5.77 – nearly half.
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And opponents last year hit nearly 40 points higher against OSU pitching for the year than the current batting average of .261.
So, if I’m going to make a point about the Buckeyes now, as opposed to the Buckeyes, then…it starts with pitching; and it starts with Kuzniewski, Domke, and Herrenbruck.
Pierce Herrenbruck completed the weekend trifecta with 7 innings of 5-hit, 1-run baseball against Nebraska.
I give all the credit in the world to sophomore Kuzniewski, who frankly survived 2025 and a competitive experience unlike anything he knew at Fishers High School, in Indiana. Obviously he’s improved his repertoire, and he’s learning on the fly to compete at college baseball’s highest level.
And you admire Chris Domke because he throws the hardest of the three starters, and has fought his way back from Tommy John surgery to improve with almost every start. And, he’s a strike thrower with the fastball and a slider with depth.
“I feel like I’m still getting better, and gaining a bit more of my original velocity with each start,” he said after his Nebraska start. His best fastball on the scoreboard radar that day was 95 mph.
And Herrenbruck, from Rend Lake Junior College, may not throw as hard or strike out as many, but he doesn’t walk many, either…just 18 in 62.1 innings.
The bullpen has followed suit. Not perfect by any means, but Haire spoke in February about throwing more strikes, pitching to contact, and not relying on the same arms day after day. And Ryan Zamora, Luke Carrell, Lincoln McVicker, Nick Sawyer…and Jake Michalak…have handed him that advantage. None, more drastically improved than Michalak.
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Last year’s great unknown has rebounded to a 5-1 record out of the pen over 35 innings, and a 4.54 ERA…a 100% improvement over 2025. Control was always his issue, and this year he’s pared down the walks to 22 in 35 innings, compared to 40 strikeouts.
Somewhere in that two-part column in February I also wrote: “This team is going to hit and score runs. The trick is to limit to other team to one less than you have.”
The great unknown a year ago, reliever Jake Michalak now leads the pitching staff in win percentage and has improved his efficiency by 100%.
And they’re doing that, too. Like Earl Weaver when he managed the Baltimore Orioles, Justin Haire loves the big inning and the three-run homer. Through 45 games the Buckeyes have hammered 66 long balls and have five players in the batting order with 30 or more RBIs. First baseman Dane Harvey leads the club with 15 homers and 50 RBIs. Noah Furcht and Mason Eckelman hit a pair of homers each in the Nebraska finale.
But there’s more to be done. Baseball giveth, and baseball taketh away. And as good as it felt to beat Nebraska three in a row and hit seven homers in Sunday’s sweep game, just two weeks earlier they experienced the reverse when they were swept by Purdue – didn’t pitch well enough to back the offense, or limit the opposition to one less run than they scored.
So here’s what we know after 45 games.
At some point when people begin to see you as a good baseball team, you have to play like you believe it – like you have a duty to prove it every time out.
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In seventh place currently (Big Ten), they have a chance on Tuesday when a hungry Miami University comes to town…a good team (32-15) seeking to make the NCAA tournament any way they can. And to MAC teams, beating Ohio State is right up there with the pursuit of eternal life. I doubt the Buckeyes see a developmental starting pitcher. Miami will be there to win.
So, something to prove.
A great way to warm up for Michigan State.
All anyone can say.
And the mainstream doesn’t say much at all!
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