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Shedlock, Penguins start slow in loss to Butler
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Shedlock
By Brandon Judeh
niles
On Sunday, the first was the worst for the Youngstown State baseball team.
The Penguins allowed five first-innings runs en route to an 18-5 slaughter by Butler in a Horizon League game at Eastwood Field.
On Saturday the Penguins (4-22, 2-7 HL) had arguably their best inning of the year when they scored four runs in the first.
Sunday, the first inning was a disaster for YSU as starting pitcher Pat Shedlock was removed before he recorded an out.
“He was fine in the bullpen, but obviously he didn’t throw strikes,” said YSU head coach Rich Pasquale.
“He didn’t attack hitters and we need to have a better start and we just can’t do that, we can’t lose two out of three at home like we have here against Butler.”
Shedlock gave up two walks, three hits and five earned runs on 29 pitches.
The Penguins used six pitchers, something Pasquale said a team never wants to do.
After the game Pasquale had a brief meeting with his team.
“I told them that they laid an egg and you can’t do that at home,” he said. “We need to do a better job. It just wasn’t a good start, going down 5-0.”
YSU first got on the board in the bottom of the first when Marcus Heath picked up an RBI single to trim the deficit to 5-1.
The Bulldogs (15-13, 5-4 HL) answered in the third when Bob Akin notched an RBI off of a sacrifice fly. Griffin Richeson then doubled in Akin to push the lead to 7-1.
In the third inning YSU chipped in to the deficit when Drew Dosch picked up an RBI on a groundout, but the brief momentum swing was short-lived.
In the bottom half of the third Butler’s Pat Gelwicks hit a no-doubter off the scoreboard in right center field to up the lead to six.
Gelwicks dominated, going 5-for-7 with three RBIs to up his batting average to .393.
Butler broke the game open in the sixth inning as the Bulldogs batted through the order.
Gelwicks, who fell a triple shy of the cycle, led off the inning with a single and ended the inning with a two-run single into right field to bump the lead up to 14-2.
One bright spot this year for the Penguins has been the emergence of sophomore third baseman Drew Dosch.
He credits the hard work he put in this past offseason.
“The biggest thing I did this summer was playing in Chillicothe and then I came back here in the fall and got great work in the weight room,” said Dosch.
Dosch accredited his hot streak to keeping things simple, seeing the ball and doing whatever the team needs him to do in every at-bat.
He finished the game 2-for-5 with two RBIs and is now batting .347 for the year.
Also having a solid game for the Penguins was Jason Shirley with three hits and two runs scored.