Poor pitching was once again the story in Ohio’s Tuesday evening loss to Morehead State (16-14) at Bob Wren Stadium. Morehead State completed the season sweep of Ohio (10-15, 6-3 Mid-American Conference) by the score of 15-2 in a seven-inning mercy rule finish.
The Eagles had already tacked on a run to go up 1-0 and had two runners on base before the first out of the game was recorded; it looked like a repeat of their previous game–where the teams combined for 33 runs–was on the table. However, Tyler Peck easily escaped the jam and went on to throw a scoreless second inning before being replaced by Patrick Straub.
Straub took the loss – his first decision of the year – for his one inning on the mound. He gave up three runs to the seven batters he faced.
Inheriting the game down 4-2, Luke Borer recorded a single strikeout on his way to allowing six runs – five earned – which blew the game open in favor of the Eagles, 10-2. He was pulled in favor of Zach Weber, who retired seven of the eight batters he faced in 2 and ⅓ scoreless and hitless innings; he was the only Bobcat pitcher not to allow an earned run.
Adam Beery and Patrick DeMarco were the Ohio pitchers who gave up the remaining five runs. DeMarco, pitching the last two outs of the seventh and final inning, allowed three runs, including a three-run deep shot by Colton Becker, his second of the night.
“I would like to see us pitch a little more backward in certain counts and situations. When you have to do that, you need guys that can execute that pitch, and we didn’t do that today,“ Moore said.
The Bobcats had eight knocks at the plate for base hits, all by different batters. Cole Williams and Nick Dolan each recorded a double, the only two extra-base hits for the Bobcats. They left two runners on base over the course of the night.
“Offensively, I thought we put some good swings on them; I thought we made some loud outs with the ball,” Moore said.
Morehead State’s Nick Gooden hit a home run along with Becker, the latter doing so twice. Ryley Preece and Roman Kuntz joined Gooden and Becker as Eagles who had multiple hits. The quartet recorded 10 of the team’s 12 hits.
Will Grimett earned his first win of the season in two innings of work. Freshman Ethan Davis started the game and allowed half of Ohio’s hits in his two innings, which left Luke Lyman, Riley Bradshaw and Zach Taylor to throw the remaining three innings. They gave up a combined two hits.
Ohio didn’t have its best game at the plate or in the field, which allowed Morehead State to take over and never let go.
“We didn’t really play clean baseball in terms of the defense. We had some wild pitches, passed balls (and) a couple of errors in the field, so that wasn’t ideal for a midweek game, for us to not really come out and execute the way we wanted to execute,“ Moore said.
