Five Buckeye hurlers combined to hold the Dayton Flyers (14-18, 4-5 Atlantic 10) to one run Wednesday night in the Ohio State (14-13, 5-3 Big Ten) baseball team’s 4-1 victory.
“We knew that we were going to get our pitchers some experience, and we knew going in that we were going to use four or five pitchers,” OSU coach Bob Todd said. “Each one of them did a good job.”
Left-hander Brett Hatcher worked two perfect innings of relief and struck out two batters to earn his first win of the season. Left-hander Jesse Paciorek pitched a scoreless ninth inning to earn his first save.
Offensively, center fielder Mike Rabin went 2-for-4 and drove in three runs. His two-out, two-run single in the sixth inning broke a 1-1 tie.
“You’ve got to come through with two-out hits and those guys, Jason (Zoeller) and Brett (Garrard), both got the two-out hit,” Rabin said. “I needed to follow suit.”
Freshmen Zoeller and Adam Schneider each went 3-for-4. Zoeller also drove in OSU’s first run. Schneider hit a pair of home runs last weekend and narrowly missed another one as he drove a pitch high off the left-center field wall for a double in the seventh inning.
“I’m starting to get really comfortable,” Schneider said. “When you get in that groove, everything looks like it’s hittable.”
Southpaw Jeffrey Carroll worked the first three scoreless innings, and Hatcher and right-hander Trey Fausnaugh worked two innings. Fausnaugh allowed UD’s only run when third baseman Brandon Godzik singled in designated hitter Chad Liter in the fourth inning. Right-hander Justin Myers also pitched a scoreless eighth inning for OSU.
The Buckeyes took too many fastballs last weekend against Purdue so they made a conscious effort to be more aggressive at the plate, Todd said.
“We’ve had a propensity to lay back in midweek games, and I wanted us to be much more aggressive,” Todd said.
Despite the win, Todd said he would like to see better execution of fundamentals.
“This team probably has as good of team speed as any I’ve ever had,” Todd said. “But we’ve got to do a better job of executing the hit-and-run and bunting – playing the short game – and utilizing that speed.”
The second-place Buckeyes open a four-game series against Michigan State at 3:05 p.m. today in East Lansing, Mich. Left-hander Josh Newman (5-3, 3.71 ERA) will be on the mound.
“It’s going to be a big series,” Zoeller said. “They’re No. 1 in the Big Ten right now, and we’re No. 2, so if we come around and win this series it’s going to be big for our team.”
Rabin said he agreed with his teammate.
“It’s a great opportunity for us; we need to capitalize on it,” he said.
Left-hander Scott Lewis (0-0, 1.80) will pitch the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, which starts at 1:05 p.m. The start will be Lewis’ second since returning from the May 29 Tommy John surgery on his left elbow. The second game of the doubleheader is slated for 3:05 p.m. and the series concludes at 1:05 p.m. Sunday.
