Baseball Pounds Miami (Ohio) 11-2 – Ohio State Buckeyes
5/8/2002 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 8, 2002
Box Score
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State smacked out 14 hits, including home runs by Brett Garrard (So., Brownsburg, Ind./Brownsburg) and Nick Swisher (Jr., Parkersburg, W.Va./Parkersburg), to beat Miami (Ohio) 11-2 Wednesday night at Bill Davis Stadium.
Garrard and Swisher went deep in the bottom half of the sixth inning to give the Buckeyes an 8-1 lead. Garrard’s fourth home run of the season was a solo shot with one out, while Swisher’s eighth blast of the year went over the fence in deep right-centerfield and also scored Doug Deeds (So., Bexley, Ohio/Bexley), who singled up the middle to get on base.
Swisher finished the game 2-for-5 and batted in three runs. Lance Rolston (Jr., Athens, Ohio/Alexander) went 3-for-5 for the Buckeyes on Wednesday as the designated hitter in a different defensive lineup.
Swisher moved from centerfield to first base, where he had played until this season when he moved to the outfield. Doug Dendinger (Sr., Greenwich, Ohio/South Central), who had been the first baseman all season, moved to leftfield and Mike Rabin (Fr., West Chester, Ohio/Lakota East) moved over to fill Swisher’s void in center.
“Nick is going to help us out on that side of the infield and Dendinger feels more comfortable in left. We have to try to get people where they feel comfortable playing.”
Ohio State, which improved to 29-15-1 overall, took a 2-0 lead in the first inning on a pair of doubles by Swisher and Christian Snavely (So., Defiance, Ohio/Defiance). Snavely’s led off the game and Swisher’s gave the Buckeyes a 1-0 lead by plating Snavely. Brett Garrard (So., Brownsburg, Ind./Brownsburg) scored on a ground out by Dendinger, who had two walks in the game to tie the Ohio State career walks record with 136 bases on balls..
Garrard singled in the second inning to score Rabin for the third run and then in the third inning, Dendinger scored when Drew Anderson (Fr., Brownsburg, Ind./Brownsburg) grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to give Ohio State a 4-0 lead.
The Buckeyes perfectly executed the prettiest play in baseball to score the fifth run of the game. With runners at second and third, Rabin laid down a sacrifice bunt with the squeeze in play. Dendinger scored form third to give the Buckeyes a 5-0 lead.
Miami, which fell to 24-23 on the year, finally answered in the sixth inning on a sacrifice fly by Zach Schmidt that scored Michael Carlin who led off the inning with a base hit to left.
After the three-run sixth inning, a pair of doubles and a triple produced two more runs in the Buckeye seventh to give Ohio State a 10-1 lead. Anderson led off the inning with a double before a Rabin ground out. Derek Kinnear (So., Kenton, Ohio/Kenton), starting as the Buckeye backstop for the second straight Wednesday, tripled to bring home Anderson. Snavely then doubled to plate Kinnear and give the Buckeyes a 10-1 lead.
Miami scored its second run in the eighth on another sacrifice fly, this time by Andi Scheidt to score Carlin. The Buckeyes then added their final run in the bottom half of the inning.
Matt Davis (Fr., Mason, Ohio/William Mason) made his third start of the season and earned his fourth victory, improving to 4-0 with the win. He pitched a career-high five innings, not allowing a run on four hits. He struck out four and walked two. Miami starter Chad Reineke got the loss after pitching only two innings. He gave up three runs on three hits with two strikeouts, but he walked four OSU batters.
Ohio State got its leadoff batter to reach in five innings and brought him across the plate four times.
The Buckeyes will travel to East Lansing, Mich. for four games this weekend at Michigan State. The teams will play at 7:05 p.m. on Friday before playing a doubleheader at 4:05 p.m. on Saturday. The series concludes Sunday with a 1:05 p.m. first pitch.
