The Buckeyes come to town for the first time in almost a decade.

Series Preview

Ohio State Buckeyes (12-12) at #24 Nebraska Cornhuskers (20-6)

Location: Hawks Field at Haymarket Park, Lincoln, NE

Dates: April 5-7th

Times (all CDT): Friday @ 6:05pm, Saturday @ 2:02 pm, Sunday @ 12:05pm

Head Coaches: Bill Mosiello (2nd season, 43-37) & Will Bolt (5th season, 117-81-1)

TV/Stream: B1G+ on Friday and Sunday, Nebraska Public Media on Saturday

Radio: Huskers Radio Network, Huskers.com, Huskers App

The last time Nebraska played Ohio State was 2022, when the Huskers swept the Buckeyes in Columbus. We don’t talk much about that 2022 season around here for good reason. That was the worst Husker team in a while, and even they swept tOSU. Thats how bad the Buckeyes were at that point. They obviously parted ways with their coaching staff, and then got an absolute home run hire in Bill Mosiello.

Most college baseball fans will know Mosiello’s work as the associate head coach at TCU for 9 years, during their run of 5 CWS teams. He was their offensive master mind. TCU was 2nd in the NCAA in stolen bases over his 9 years, and led the Big XII in batting average multiple times.

So the OSU offense is set, and all Mosiello did for his pitching staff is get Sean Allen, who won the award for top assistant coach in the country as pitching coach at Texas. The same Texas who led the NCAA in ERA in 2021 and was almost a CWS finalist in 2022. As if that wasn't enough, they added Andrew See, a successful pitching coach at Clemson for 7 seasons. And then this season when you could add a 4th assistant, they took the pitching coach from Kansas State, Buck Taylor, who led Kansas State to many of its best pitching seasons. He will mainly work with catchers at tOSU. With that staff, it’s just a matter of time before the Buckeyes get back towards the upper tier of the conference.

The team is coming off a series victory against Purdue, which I would call a slight upset. Purdue has the much better pitching staff and a slightly better offense when things are clicking than the Buckeyes. This week, OSU had both of their midweek games against Kent State postponed, so we get to play the rest vs rust game. Their bullpen should be full force, but how much rust will their hitters have?

Pitching Probables

Game 1: RHP Brett Sears (5-0, 1.36 ERA) vs. LHP Landon Beidelschies (1-3, 6.39 ERA)

Game 2: RHP Mason McConnaughey (2-2, 2.86 ERA) vs. LHP Gavin Bruni (2-0, 5.34 ERA)

Game 3: RHP Drew Christo (1-1, 4.09 ERA) vs. RHP Gavin DeVooght (2-1, 1.15 ERA)

Another week, another Brett Sears win. Sears gave up a couple runs early in the game, but then went on a streak where he retired 15 out of 16 batters, and that one batter was technically out as he tried to stretch a single into a double. Sears was recognized for his great season so far by being put on the midseason watch list for the Golden Spikes Award as well!

The Huskers have elected to switch their Saturday and Sunday starters from last week. Mason McConnaughey is back for a second weekend stint in a row. He gave up a pair of 2-run home runs, but between the two retired 15 straight Wildcats. He ended up going 5.2 innings, allowing 5 hits and 4 earned runs while striking out 6. Not all that bad for a first weekend start, especially against a conference foe.

With Big Mac’s move to Saturday (I cant keep writing McConnaughey all the way out) Drew Christo will be taking the “Championship Sunday” spot for NU. Like the other two pitchers, Northwestern jumped on him early and got a 2-1 lead in the first inning. Walks and hit batters got him into that trouble. Like the others he rallied to retire 7 straight, until the control issues popped back up. He ended up going 4.2 innings before Will Walsh took over the game and preserved the win.

Former OSU closer Landon Beidelschies is off to a great start as the Buckeye Friday night starter. He has pitched 40.1 innings in his 7 starts, with a 3.35 ERA and 50 strikeouts including a career high 12 against West Virginia. Expect to see him in the 7th inning, he rarely doesn’t make it that far in his starts, even with the high strikeout numbers.

Saturday starter Gavin Bruni is the most experienced starter for tOSU, but his numbers are down from a year ago. His walks and strikeout numbers are incredible close to each other and his ERA has creeped up to 5.34. As for Sunday, Ohio State is replacing a pitcher the Huskers saw during his time at Texas A&M-CC, Colin Purcell. Purcell has had a rough go of it his past 4 starts, so the Buckeyes are turning to freshman Gavin DeVooght. DeVooght has a 1.15 ERA and 13 Ks. He’s made 10 appearances, including 1 start, but has only had a total of 15.1 innings. So don’t expect to see him long.

Scouting Report

Sophomore catcher Matthew Graveline is really heating up in the last half of March. He now leads the team with a .335 batting average despite really struggling early on. He’s also tied for the team lead with 3 home runs as well as 8 stolen bases. This team likes to run, and has plenty of players in the 5 to 8 stolen bases range. Nick Giamarusti provides a lot of pop, usually from the DH spot. He leads the team in slugging and is tied for the league in home runs despite playing in only 16 of the 24 games. He finished a triple short of the cycle in game 1 against Purdue.

Third baseman Tyler Pettorini is leading the team in RBIs from the cleanup spot. He’s batting .298 and is second to Graveline in total bases. He does have his issues in the field though, with only an .895 fielding percentage at the hot corner. Look for Nebraska to try and exploit that with bunts and fake-and-pokes.

The bullpen hasn’t been the strongest group for the Buckeyes, but one bright spot is Tennessee Tech transfer Jacob Morin. In his 9 appearances, the diminutive Morin has given up only 1 run for a 0.87 ERA and has accumulated 13 strikeouts in just over 10 innings. Freshman Zach Brown has been another go-to arm, tied for the team lead with 12 appearances and leading the pen with 22.2 innings. He has a 3.97 ERA, doesn’t srkie out a ton of batters, with only 11 Ks to 9 walks. It is easy to see if he is hot or cold right away in most outings.

Series History

Nebraska leads the all time series 19-13 over Ohio State, with the last meeting being the aforementioned sweep in 2022. The last visit in Lincoln was a 2-1 series victory by Ohio State. The big game that series was a Saturday where Kyle Kuwait went 9 innings, but the Buckeyes’ pitcher went all 10 and OSU came out with a 2-1 win in 10 innings.

Husker Notes

• Nebraska has only allowed 7 stolen bases on the season. They are one of 2 teams to allow that.
• Riley Silva is one of only 3 players in D-1 to steal 17 bases and be caught 1 or fewer times.
• Kyle Perry has not given up a run in his last 6 outings. His ERA is now down to 2.70. He is also starting to extend his outings, going a season high 2.1 innings against Northwestern last weekend.