Many people believe you need to start a game or an inning by getting the leadoff batter on base to give yourself the best possibility of scoring. The idea behind it is if you start with momentum, it will continue to carry until the inning is over. Ohio has yet to do this successfully this season.
Ohio finished a three-game series against the University of Illinois Chicago, where scoring runs was difficult. In the first game of the series, Ohio did not score any runs in the game, while UIC scored three.
In the second game, they scored just enough to defeat UIC 3-2 on the back of two home runs by freshman Pauly Mancino and senior Gideon Antle, which were the only hits to drive in runs.
In the final game of the series, Ohio scored three runs again, but this time, it would not be enough to defeat UIC, as they scored seven.
Ohio has been inconsistent with the number of runs they score per game this year. They have scored under five runs in five of their nine games this season yet scored more than 10 runs in two of their games.
This may be because of their inability to get their lead-off batter on base.
In 80 lead-off plate appearances, the lead-off batter has gotten on base just 23 times, two of which were by errors. Of the 23 times the lead-off batter has gotten on base, only five of them were from extra-base hits.
“The one thing offensively that we didn’t do this weekend that we’ve done in the past couple weekends is get the leadoff guy on,” Ohio coach Craig Moore said.
There are many reasons why Ohio was not able to get sufficient run production this weekend. However, Moore knows that is not from a lack of aggressiveness at the plate.
“We want our guys to be aggressive,” Moore said. “Our offensive guys, we’re aggressive.”
Gideon Antle is currently the best on the team when leading off the inning, getting on base six times in the 11 plate appearances he has batted lead-off.
The inability to get the lead-off batter on base is not always a result of a poor plate appearance; sometimes, you just get unlucky. Many Ohio batters hit the ball hard on Sunday; it just did not fall for a hit.
“We had some loud outs, we had some barrels,” Moore said. “The ball just didn’t drop for us.”
Increasing the number of lead-off batters who get on base could be the key to success for Ohio this season.
