The 18th-ranked Ohio State baseball team, after 24 consecutive “road” games to open the season, defeated Xavier, 9-7, Tuesday afternoon at Bill Davis Stadium in its home opener.
A three-run seventh inning completed a game-long comeback for the Buckeyes, who trailed 4-0 after the first inning, 6-3 after the fifth and 7-5 after the Xavier half of the seventh. Justin Miller and Dan Burkhart singled in the inning and both scored – tying the game at 7-all – off Ryan Dew’s double to the right field wall. Dew scored on Cory Rupert’s triple to give the Buckeyes their first lead of the game.
Dean Wolosiansky pitched 3.0 innings in relief of starter Ross Oltorik to pick up the win and improve to 5-1 on the season. He surrendered just one run off three hits. Jake Hale, making his fourth appearance in the last eight days, pitched the final two innings for his fifth save of the year and his 13th finished game. Both stats lead the Big Ten Conference.
On Wednesday Marshall rolled into Columbus and defeated 18th-ranked Ohio State, 14-3, in front of a crowd of 595 at Bill Davis Stadium. The win was Marshall’s first over Ohio State in 16 tries and improved its record to 12-15 on the season. Ohio State, which rested several everyday starters, drops to 21-5.
The green jerseys stroked a season-high 21 hits against four Ohio State pitchers. Starting pitcher Mike Mason, a true freshman who had pitched just 6.1 innings for his career, lasted 5.0 innings, didn’t allow an earned run and gave up just three hits to a team that was leading the Big Ten Conference in both runs (9.56 per game) and hitting (.342 average and 12.8 hits per game). He improved to 1-0 with the win.
The Herd put three runs on the board in the second inning, four in the third and another three in the fourth to build a 10-0 lead before the Buckeyes even had two hits. Thor Meeks had a three-run home run in the third and Rhett Stafford a two-run single in the fourth to spark the Herd’s offense early on. A solo run in the fifth extended the lead to 11-0
Ohio State added a run in the fifth on Shawn Forsythe’s RBI single, but left three runners on base. Two more Ohio State runs in the sixth closed the lead to 11-3. Ben Toussant and Tyler Engle had RBI singles. Toussant and Engle each had two singles on the day, as did Ryan Dew, to lead the offense.
Marshall, which added two more runs in the eighth and another in the ninth, was led at the plate by Stafford with five hits and four RBI, Victor Gomez, who had three hits and three RBI and Meeks, who had a pair of hits and three RBI.
Theron Minium started for the Buckeyes, pitched 3.0 innings and took the loss to drop to 0-2 on the season.
Xavier Recap & Game Notes
Xavier Box Score
Marshall Recap & Game Notes
Marshall Box score
2 comments:
I don't get too excited about mid - week Ws / Ls but these two games, coupled with Sunday's vs PSU, leads me to 2 thoughts:
- we cannot afford long term injury to our 'top 5' (Wolo, Jake, Drew, Best and Wimmers). I suppose no Big 10 team can; but I think that there is a HUGE drop off from 1-5 for us vs the rest of the staff
- we really need AA to come around
Yes i hate to see games like Wednesday vs. Marshall. The game was over in the 4th inning. I don't care how awesome your offensive you can't come from behind every night.The OSU pitching was horrible to put it nicely yesterday. I agree about the top 5 pitchers being the work horses. I still think this team has what it takes to win the Big Ten but they can't have any slip ups on week nights if they want to host an NCAA regional.
Looks like the OSU will go with Wimmers,Dean W and Best in that order this weekend. If the starters can go 6 or 7 IP,OSU is in great shape with the pen. I hope Armstrong can get himself straight on the hill real soon.
Go Buckeyes beat the Gophers!
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