Coming into this weekend’s series against Michigan, the Ohio State baseball team knew it had to win at least three out of four games to keep pace with Big Ten Conference front-runner Minnesota.
But after two losses on Saturday, the Buckeyes were willing to settle for a split with the Wolverines.
Too bad the Buckeyes didn’t get anything they wanted.
For the first time in Davis Stadium history, OSU lost a series as the Wolverines took the last game of the weekend with a 9-4 victory yesterday. The Buckeyes had not lost a home series since 1996 when Indiana beat OSU at Trautman Field.
“When you stay in the world of athletics long enough, you’re going to see everything,” OSU coach Bob Todd said. “The world of athletics and baseball have a way of evening things out sometimes.”
Similar to the first three games of the series, the Buckeyes struggled offensively. However, for the first time in over a month, the OSU pitching staff struggled just as much.
Lefty Chris Hanners started on the mound for the Buckeyes and quickly ran into trouble. After working through a scoreless first inning, Hanners walked Wolverine second baseman Jordan Cantalamessa to open up the inning. Hanners appeared to get first baseman Mike Sokol to fly out to right field, but OSU outfielder Christian Snavely dropped the ball, sending Cantalamessa to third and Sokol to second.
With his defense struggling behind him, Hanners appeared rattled on the mound. He walked left fielder Chris Burhans to load the bases. After getting an out, Hanners’ wildness appeared again as he walked in a run with the bases loaded. Michigan center fielder and Buckeye-killer Gino Lollio drove in two more runs with a single. Lollio later hit a solo home run in the sixth inning and finished the day 3-for-3 with three RBI and two runs scored.
“When you play a good hitting team like Michigan, they are going to take advantage of the errors,” Snavely said. “They took advantage of my error and scored three runs, which was big.”
Michigan appeared on its way to an easy win as it held a 5-0 lead in the bottom of the eighth inning. But with two outs, Wolverine starting pitcher Drew Taylor began to show fatigue.
OSU center fielder Mike Rabin started with a single, followed by Snavely’s double. Designated hitter Steve Caravati, who has been nursing a bruised hand, brought both home with his double. Catcher Derek Kinner added another two-run double as the Buckeyes cut the Wolverine lead to 5-4. Taylor finally exited after throwing 131 pitches over 7 2-3 innings.
It took just one pitch for reliever Ali Husain to quell the Buckeye rally, as he got left fielder Cody Caughenbaugh to line out as Kinnear stood at third.
“They made plays, and we didn’t,” Caravati said. “That was the bottom line for the weekend.”
But in the top of the ninth, the Wolverines opened the game back up, scoring four runs off OSU pitchers Mike Madsen and Matt Davis.
“We just didn’t put enough pressure on them in them, especially at the beginning of the game,” Todd said. “Obviously our relief pitching didn’t do their job in the ninth inning, but that was a big, big out when they go out of the eighth inning.”
