Buckeyes Head to Bloomington For Big Weekend Series with Indiana and Nebraska
5/20/2021 11:25:42 PM | Baseball
Ohio State vs. Nebraska
Date: May 22, 2021 | Time: 1:00 p.m. | Watch: BTN Plus+ | Scoring/Listen
Probable Starters:
Ohio State – Seth Lonsway (R-Jr. | LHP | 3-5 | 3.86 ERA | 58.1 IP | 85 K | 33 BB)
Nebraska – Shay Schanaman (Jr. | RHP | 4-2 | 5.47 ERA | 51.0 IP | 57 K | 20 BB)
Ohio State vs. Nebraska
Date: May 23, 2021 | Time: 1:00 p.m. | Watch: BTN | Scoring/Listen
Probable Starters:
Ohio State – Will Pfennig (Jr. | RHP | 0-2 | 5.68 ERA | 25.1 IP | 20 K | 12 BB)
Nebraska – TBA
Ohio State vs. Indiana
Date: May 23, 2021 | Time: 5:00 p.m. | Watch: BTN | Scoring/Listen
Probable Starters:
Ohio State – Garrett Burhenn (Jr. | RHP | 5-2 | 4.41 ERA | 65.1 IP | 69 K | 26 BB)
Indiana – Gabe Bierman (So. | RHP | 5-3 | 2.57 ERA | 63.0 IP | 68 K | 25 BB)
Ohio State vs. Indiana
Date: May 24, 2021 | Time: 6:00 p.m. | Watch: BTN | Scoring/Listen
Probable Starters:
Ohio State – Griffan Smith (Sr. | LHP | 1-0 | 5.79 ERA | 18.2 IP | 16 K | 4 BB)
Indiana – TBA
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Ohio State heads to Bloomington this weekend to face the top two teams in the conference in host Indiana and Nebraska. The Buckeyes have played both teams already this season. Ohio State and Nebraska split a pair of games in Minneapolis in March and Ohio State swept Indiana in a four-game series in Columbus at the beginning of April.
Nebraska holds a one-game lead over Indiana for the top spot in the conference. The Buckeyes are in sixth place, 5.5 games back.
The Opponents
- Nebraska comes into the weekend at 25-11 and lead the conference by one game.
- The Huskers had a stretch of four losses in five games but has since rebounded to win five of the last six games.
- Nebraska is the top hitting team in the conference at .281 and the Huskers have score the most runs per game at 7.3.
- Indiana comes in just a game behind Nebraska at 24-12. The Hoosiers lost a series at Michigan last weekend and then fell 3-2 in 10 innings to Illinois on Tuesday.
- Indiana has the best pitching staff in the league as the Hoosiers top the league in ERA at 3.08, hits per nine innings at 6.67 and batting average at .204.
Ohio State Quick Hitters
- Ohio State enters the weekend at 19-15 overall and needs a good run to finish the regular season.
- The Buckeye pitching staff leads the Big Ten in strikeouts per nine innings at 10.8 which is also 12th nationally.
- The OSU staff is second in the Big Ten in hits allowed by batter per nine innings (8.02) as well as second in opponent batting average (.239).
- Seth Lonsway is third in the conference in strikeouts with 85 and has allowed the second fewest hits per nine innings at 4.94. That second number is also seventh in the country.
- Garrett Burhenn leads the team with a 5-2 record and has made a team-high 11 starts. He has won three of his last five starts and has struck out at least six in each of those four starts.
- Jack Neely has moved from the starting lineup to the bullpen two weeks ago and his first two appearances out of the pen have been superb. He has covered four innings and has only allowed one hit with six strikeouts.
- TJ Brock has seven saves on the year which is second in the Big Ten. He also leads the team with a 1.96 ERA in a team-high 15 appearances.
- Freshman Kade Kern had a great first collegiate season and he currently leads the team with a .356 batting average. That is also fourth in the Big Ten.
- Kern has 14 multi-hit games and is currently reached base in a season-high 12 consecutive games.
- Brent Todys is currently riding a career-high 15-game hitting streak. He is hitting .390 with two home runs, five doubles and 16 runs batted in over those 15 games.
- Conner Pohl has hit safely in 16 of the last 17 games. He has had a hit in 26 of the 35 games this season. He has reached base in all but two of the games this year and is riding a streak of 25 consecutive games of reaching base, which is also a career high.
- Pohl leads the team with 11 home runs, marking his first season with double-digit bombs. That total is also tied for second in the conference.
Earlier This Year vs. Nebraska & Indiana
- The Buckeyes split two games with Nebraska on March 12 and 14 at US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
- The Huskers used a five-run second inning to propel them to a 10-4 on March 12. Then in the second game, Will Pfennig allowed two runs in the first and then ended up going 6.2 innings while only allowing three runs and striking out seven. Colton Bauer hit a big two-out, two-run homer in the top of the 8th to give the Buckeyes a 6-4 victory.
- Ohio State swept Indiana in a four-game series from March 30 – April 2.
- The shining moment of the weekend came from Seth Lonsway in his complete game, two hit shutout that featured a career-high 17 strikeouts. In a seven inning game, just four outs in the game did not come via a strikeout.
- As a whole, the Buckeye pitching staff limited Indiana to just a .154 batting average and struck out 46 batters while allowing just four earned runs over the four games.
- At the plate, Zach Dezenzo hit .533 (8-of-15) with two home runs over the weekend. He had a four-hit game in the series finale, including the game-winning walk-off double in the bottom of the ninth. He finished with four RBI and three scored runs in the four games.
- Sam Wilson had five hits in the four games and three of those hits were doubles.
- The Buckeyes took advantage of eight Indiana errors over the four games.
- TJ Brock collected two saves on the weekend.
#GoBuckeyes
