Buckeyes Open 2014 with First Team Practice – Ohio State Buckeyes
1/24/2014 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
Jan. 24, 2014
- Follow the Buckeyes on Facebook and Twitter
- Photo Gallery
COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Ohio State baseball team began preparations for the 2014 season with its first team practice Friday afternoon at Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
With just three weeks left until the first game Feb. 14, the anticipation was evident for the 2014 Buckeyes.
“It’s an exciting day,” Ohio State head coach Greg Beals said. “We’ve had a great offseason with our strength and conditioning coach, Dean Hansen, and our guys are ready to start. We have some young guys who we think will be major contributors for us this season so these three weeks will be important. Our job as a coaching staff is to speed up the learning curve so we’ll do that as fast as we can.”
Senior Greg Greve echoed Beals’ thoughts.
“It’s always exciting getting back into it as a team and seeing all the guys,” Greve said. “It’s a bit of an adjustment being inside but being able to work on some things as a team is exciting with three weeks left before the season. In three weeks will be down in sunny Florida to play some baseball so you have to wrap your mind around that and get ready to go.”
The program welcomes 16 newcomers from a season ago but lost 12 letterwinners, including five starting position players and all three weekend starters. From Beals’ standpoint, developing the arms of the pitching staff and identifying those roles will be a priority over the first three weeks of practice.
“The guys had a throwing program over break, having been throwing bullpens the last two weeks and today we’ll have six guys who will throw two innings,” Beals said. “The goal is to get their arm strength built up to give us five innings the first weekend of the season. We have four or five guys who are in the hunt for those weekend spots. Greve should be able to start on the weekend for us. Ryan Riga, who was a junior for us last year and made a couple spots starts, will be in the mix and so will Jake Post, who was a midweek starter for us last year. We also have (Travis) Lakins and (Zach) Farmer, a couple of freshman who will see time and Josh Dezse will have an opportunity. Josh obviously has the talent to be there but we’ll have to see how all of those guys progress and develop before Feb. 14.”
Greve thought much of the same but feels the practice time is equally as important to the hitters.
“It’s easy as a pitcher because we’ve been able to work out, throw some bullpens and build some arm strength,” Greve added. “But I still think it’s just as important for the hitters to see as much live pitching as possible before we get on the field against Connecticut.”
The team will have 17 more team practices before opening the 2014 season against Connecticut, Auburn and Indiana State Feb. 14-16 in Port Charlotte, Fla.
