Ohio is in the midst of yet another losing streak after dropping six straight games.
The Bobcats will try to end that streak against Marshall on Wednesday, but they had problems with midweek pitching all year. Ohio’s also yet to win one of its three midweek games. Three of their other scheduled ones were canceled because of weather, including a home matchup with Marshall.
The weekend starting trio has been solid in comparison to the midweek starters, which has primarily been sophomore pitcher Jake Miller (0-4). He hasn’t led the Bobcats to victory yet this season in 23 2/3 innings pitched in nine appearances. Miller also has racked up an 11.41 earned run average, in addition to 40 hits and 17 walks.
Because of Miller’s struggles, freshman Gerry Salisbury (0-3) will get the start Wednesday. In 17 innings pitched, he has posted an 8.47 ERA.
“Our biggest issue in the midweeks for the most part has been throwing strikes,” coach Rob Smith said. “At Ohio State we did a good job at throwing strikes, but they did an equally better job at hitting. We’ll continue with that, we’re going to ask our pitchers to pound the strike-zone this week.”
Marshall’s midweek pitchers haven’t had much success with winning as well, but have kept teams much closer. The non-weekend starters for the Thundering Herd all have ERAs of under seven, while both the Bobcats’ starters in weekday games have exceeded an ERA of eight.
Marshall freshman pitcher Roscoe Blackburn has received three of the team’s six starts and in 11 innings pitched, Blackburn has allowed eight runs on 11 hits and seven walks. Blackburn has a 0-1 record this season.
Marshall, who has won five of its last seven games, is led offensively by sophomore outfielder Chase Vogelbach, who has tallied a team-leading 12 runs on 27 hits, with a team-high .293 batting average.
The Thundering Herd has six batters averaging over .200 on the season and no batter is averaging .300 or higher, compared to Ohio’s freshman centerfielder Mitch Longo who has accumulated a .415 batting average this season.
“We’re going to force the other team to beat us,” Smith said. “If they can swing the bat good enough on that day, then they’ll probably score some runs. Baseball has typically shown us that if you can minimize free bases it’s going to take a pretty good effort by the opposing team to put runs on the board.”
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