Baseball Returns Home to Play Host to Oakland – Ohio State Buckeyes
4/9/2003 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
April 9, 2003
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COLUMBUS, Ohio – It seems like the Ohio State baseball team has played every game on the road this season. The Buckeyes have played 19 of their first 23 games away from home, but return to Bill Davis Stadium Wednesday at 4:05 p.m. to play host to Oakland in a doubleheader that will begin the 12-game homestand.
Ohio State has not been at home since March 15-16, when it took a pair of doubleheaders against Eastern Michigan and Detroit. Those wins give the Buckeyes a perfect 4-0 record at home, contrasting with a 9-10 record away from Bill Davis Stadium. The Scarlet and Gray is 4-2 in official away games and is 5-8 in neutral-site matchups.
The Buckeyes enter the Oakland doubleheader after splitting four games each with Northwestern and Penn State. The last time the Buckeyes split the first two conference weekends was in 2000 with even records against Iowa and Minnesota.
A return home could be good for the Buckeyes as Bill Davis Stadium has helped the Buckeyes to a 120-36 record (.769) over the years. That includes a 62-28 record against Big Ten foes and 57-8 mark against non-conference opponents.
The homestand also features two Big Ten series, against Iowa and Indiana, and two other mid-week non-conference games against Wooster and Shawnee State.
ABOUT THE BUCKEYES
Ohio State is 13-10 on the year and 4-4 in the Big Ten after going 2-2 last weekend at State College, Pa. against Penn State. The Buckeyes came back to defeat the Nittany Lions 4-3 in 10 innings in the opening game of the series. The second game went the way of Penn State by a score of 2-1, but the Buckeyes rebounded for a 7-5 win in the third game to set up the finale for a potential series win. It instead went the way of the Lions, who sprinted out to an early 7-0 lead before claiming a 10-2 victory.
Derek Kinnear remains the batting leader for the Buckeyes. He is hitting .361 (26-72) with three doubles and two home runs. His 15 RBI lead the team. This weekend though, the hot bats belonged to freshman Cody Caughenbaugh, who was 4-for-11, inncluding a three-hit day in the opening game, and Mike Rabin, who led the team with six hits. Steve Caravati and Brett Garrard each batted in three runs.
Sophomore left-handed pitcher Scott Lewis continues to dominate on the mound, though he did not get a decision in his start in Happy Valley. He pitched seven innings but left trailing 3-1 despite 11 strikeouts. He is 4-0 on the year with a 1.93 ERA and has 58 strikeouts in 42.0 innings.
AGAINST OAKLAND
Ohio State leads the all-time series with Oakland 3-1, though the Golden Grizzlies won10-5 last year to counter the three wins by Ohio State. The Buckeyes have won by scores of 11-9 (1999), 12-2 (2000) and 8-2 (2001).
ABOUT THE GOLDEN GRIZZLIES
Oakland is 12-11 on the year after dropping its last four games, including a doubleheader this past Sunday to Bowling Green.
Ryan Freiburger leads the team with a .370 batting average and the team is hitting .275 with 10 home runs. On the mound, Kyle Boehm owns a 1.53 adn a 3-1 record on a staff that has a 4.27 ERA. The Grizzlies are expected to start Paul Phillips in game one and Billy Schmieder in game two.
LAST YEAR VS. OAKLAND
Oakland starter Dominic Carmosino struck out six and reliever Jared Thomas struck out nine to lift the Grizzlies to a 10-5 midweek victory over Ohio State. Buckeye pitchers struggled to start the contest, but Ohio State remained in the game until a big fourth inning by Oakland.
The Grizzlies scored five times that inning to seal the victory, taking advantage of a pitching change by the Buckeyes. In an effort to get work for several Buckeye pitchers, Buckeye skipper Bob Todd went with Matt Davis in place of starter Chris Hanners to start the fourth inning. Hanners allowed five runs to come across in the first three innings, but the Buckeyes had pulled within 5-4 before surrendering the big fourth inning. Only three runs scored in the first three innings were earned on a total of seven hits. Davis pitched just a third of an inning yet allowed five runs, four earned, on five hits.
Paul Farinacci doubled to right field, scoring Joe Wilkins for the Buckeyes first run of the game in the second inning. Wilkins later plated two Buckeyes (Doug Deeds and Nick Swisher) on a double in the third inning after Swisher singled to score Christian Snavely, who led off the inning with a single up the middle. That was the only offense for the Buckeyes until the seventh inning when they added one run.
Kyle Brown replaced Davis in the fourth inning and pitched 3.2 scoreless innings while giving up just three hits. He struck out the side in the fifth inning and retired the batters in order in the sixth. He left the game with six strikeouts at the start of the eighth inning. Brandon Steen and Mike Madsen each contributed an inning of scoreless relief.
BUCKEYES SPLIT WITH PENN STATE
After splitting with Northwestern the opening week of conference play, the Buckeyes got the same result at Penn State. Despite taking wins in two of the first three games to go for a series win in the finale, Ohio State dropped the fourth game to even the Big Ten record to 4-4.
Christian Snavely provided the tying run in the top of the ninth inning and a winning triple in the top of the 10th as the Buckeyes overcame seven errors to hand Penn State a 4-3 loss in its home opener Friday at Beaver Field. Trailing 3-2 entering the ninth inning, Snavely delivered with a lead-off home run over the fence in left-centerfield, a shot that went at least 395 feet. Snavely again rose to the challenge as he got his ninth triple of this career (tied for fifth all-time in OSU history) to score Derek Kinnear and give the Buckeyes the win. Mike Madsen picked up the win in relief to move to 2-1 on the year. Madsen came on to relieve starter Scott Lewis in the eighth inning trailing 3-1. Madsen pitched 2.0 innings and allowed just one hit while Lewis went 7.0 innings with 11 strikeouts and two walks. He gave up three runs (two earned) on seven hits. Davis notched his fifth save of the season.
Penn State capitalized on two Ohio State errors, one more costly than the other, to hand the Buckeyes a 2-1 defeat in the first game of a doubleheader Saturday at Beaver Field. Willie Melendez and Mike Milliron got hits to start the bottom of the fourth inning and scored on an error by Snavely, and a single by Derrick Barr. Those runs would be all the Nittany Lions would need to counter Ohio State’s only run, which was scored in the second inning. Terry Pettorini singled deep in the gap to left-centerfield to score Drew Anderson, who reached on a one-out single to center one batter earlier. Mike Rabin went 3-for-4 on the day to lead Ohio State. His lead-off hit to start the game ended an 0-for-16 streak. Anderson finished 2-for-3 and Pettorini had the only other hit in two at bats.
Steve Caravati knocked in three on a pair of doubles and scored once to help lead Ohio State to a 7-5 win over Penn State in the second game of a doubleheader Saturday to salvage a split with the Nittany Lions after they claimed the first game 2-1. Caravati was 2-for-4 and got his second and third doubles of the season. Wes Schirtzinger and Kinnear were also 2-for-4 in the game. Kinnear delivered an RBI and scored twice. Rabin was 1-for-4, but batted in a pair while scoring twice himself. Kyle Brown got the win for the Buckeyes in a career long 6.1 innings in a starting role. He moved to 1-0 on the year, his first win since beating Penn State in April, 2001. He allowed five runs (four earned) on five hits, while walk four and striking out four.
Penn State sprinted out to a 7-0 lead in the first three innings before handing the Buckeyes a 10-2 loss in the series finale Sunday at Beaver Field. Penn State used five hits and two Ohio State errors to jump out to an early 5-0 lead on the Buckeyes. A home run by Wes Reohr scored two in the bottom of the third. Ohio State finally got on the board in the fifth inning thanks to back-to-back doubles by Brett Garrard and Wes Schirtzinger. Cody Caughenbaugh, who capitalized on a fielding error by the Penn State second baseman, scored on the two-bagger by Garrard. Schirtzinger’s shot down the left-field line scored Garrard to close the gap to five runs.
CAPTAIN COMEBACKCAPTAIN COMEBACK
Anyone who listens to Buckeye baseball on the radio, has heard the nickname “Captain Comeback” in reference to Buckeye Christian Snavely, but it had been a while since the moniker had been said by commentators Herb Howenstine and Frank Fraas. That all changed this past weekend at Penn State when the junior from Defiance, Ohio, gave the Buckeyes a come-from-behind win in the opening game of the series.
Trailing 3-2 entering the top of the ninth, Snavely hit his fourth home run of the season to tie the game. He came up with one on and two out in the top of the ninth and smashed his ninth career triple to give the Buckeyes a 4-3 victory. That was just par for the course for the guy who has played first, second and third bases as well as outfield and DH for the Buckeyes, but he had been relatively quiet since his freshman year when Buckeye fans were first introduced to his nickname.
That season he earned Louisville Slugger honorable mention All-America honors largely in part to his heroics late in games. Against Minnesota he proved himself clutch in a 5-1 series finale victory, a game in which he entered as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the eighth inning with one on and one out, trailing 1-0. He delivered on a 2-0 pitch and hammered it over the fence to give the Buckeyes a 2-1 lead. Against Michigan State, he belted a pinch-hit, game-winning, top-of-the-ninth inning grand slam in Ohio State’s 10-9 win. He smacked a game-winning, two run walk-off home run in the bottom half of the seventh inning in a 6-5 win over Illinois.
It is no wonder that Snavely is not seeing many good pitches at the plate this year. He is batting only .206 this season after finishing second on the team a year ago with a .360 average. He has walked 29 times, including a game-high four times against Eastern Michigan and a total of six times in last Saturday’s doubleheader against Penn State after his heroics in game one of the series.
