Freshman center fielder Nick Squires reached base three times without recording a hit or seeing four pitches out of the strike zone in a 5-4 victory against Northern Illinois on Friday.
Squires was hit three times by three different pitchers, allowing him to trot 90 feet to first base three times and raise his on-base percentage to .351, which is the fifth-best on the team.
He and his brother Nate have been hit a combined 23 times, which accounts for more than a third of the number of times a Bobcat has been plunked. Nick leads the team with 12 HBP, but his brother Nate is right behind him with 11.
“We don’t move our feet when it’s coming at us,” Nate said. “And we’ll lean into one or stick our feet out if the umpire doesn’t catch it and send us back … Since high school, we started (trying to get hit). If a slow curve ball is coming in, we’ll stick our knee out or if a fast ball is coming in, we’ll just take it and just be a man about it.”
Coach Rob Smith admires the grit that the Squires twins display when they sacrifice their body to put themselves on base.
“I’ll give them and a couple other hitters of ours credit,” Smith said. “They don’t get scared at the plate. They’re not afraid to make pitchers feel uncomfortable and that’s part of our offense and we’ve got a pretty high number of hit by pitches as a team … (Squires) understands the importance of getting base runners, as all of our players do.”
Smith predicts that Ohio’s upcoming games at home Tuesday against Morehead State (12-28) and on the road Wednesday against Marshall (14-24) will be highly “offensive,” meaning the Bobcats (9-28) will have to get on base to produce runs.
“It’ll be interesting to see how we get through it with the two midweek games,” Smith said. “We’ve just had the one midweek game recently, so I’m not certain how the next two games will play out.”
Smith said that he’s going to play guys who can throw the ball over the plate and he will even throw position players on the mound to save up his regular arms for a weekend series on the road against Ball State to resume Mid-American Conference play.
ch203310@ohiou.edu
