Ohio’s pitching staff is at the forefront of a litany of concerns.
During midweek games coach Rob Smith has few pitchers at his disposal. In Tuesday’s 9-1 victory against Morehead State, however, he only called the bullpen twice after starter Jake Miller worked a scoreless first inning.
Junior lefthander Sean Kennedy (2-0) worked 5.1 innings, acquiescing three hits in the 19 batters he faced. His only major blemish came in the seventh inning when he served up a solo home run to Brandon Rawe.
“Kennedy was very good, throwing strikes and challenging hitters,” Smith said.
“We’re always worried with one midweek game, let alone two. Sean and Brad (Przebieda) did a nice job eating up a lot of innings. That leaves us with fresher arms (against Marshall).”
Smith added that senior Marck Paliotto will start and throw an inning in Wednesday’s game against Marshall. Nick Plys, Ryan Ferrell, Logan Cozart and Brett Barber will round out the pitching ledger.
Ohio started the scoring in the second inning when sophomore outfielder Brice Nikithser scored from second base off a single from senior second baseman Ben Otto.
The Bobcats tacked on five more runs in the bottom of the third inning. With runners at the corners, senior shortstop Dan Schmidt failed to execute the squeeze play.
He more than made it up by smacking a pitch over left-center field wall to bring home three runs. He went 3-for-5 at the plate with three hits and those three runs batted in.
“The pitcher made a mistake, he hung the ball a little bit and I was able to get under and hit the ball in the air,” Schmidt said.
Ohio struck for more runs in the fifth and sixth innings when Otto singled in junior catcher Kyle Dean, before he hit a sacrifice fly to bring in designated hitter J.R. Reynolds in the sixth. Freshman outfielder Alex Corna singled to score Schmidt to cap the scoring.
Przebieda came in for 2.2 innings of work permitting only four hits while striking out once to close out the game.
nr225008@ohiou.edu
