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Buckeyes blank Penguins at Eastwood Field
Big crowd watches Ohio State's first-ever road game vs. Penguins
NILES
Youngstown State pitcher Joe King had earned the opportunity to start against Ohio State.
Ideally, it wouldn’t have been on two days rest. Ultimately, it may not have mattered.
The Buckeyes shut out the Penguins, 7-0, in their first-ever road game against YSU. Five OSU pitchers combined to throw a four-hitter in front of a mixed crowd of 3,041 at Eastwood Field.
“[King] needed to see those kinda guys,” said Penguins manager Steve Gillispie.
“He had earned an opportunity to pitch in this type of game. It’s unfortunate he probably didn’t throw as well as he had hoped to.”
The sophomore threw 109 pitches on Saturday in a win at Valparaiso. Still, Gillispie decided to give the left-hander the start, just with a low pitch count.
King (2-2, 3.65 ERA) struggled to find the strike zone from the beginning, allowing Ohio State to get two runs in the top half of the first. He walked five batters in two full innings of work.
“We knew he was going on short rest, but he’s been really good for us all year,” said Penguins reliever Ryan Krokos. “We knew it was going to be a pitcher-by-committee coming in, so we were ready to go whenever.
“It’s something we’ve done a couple times this year, so it was nothing new for us.”
Krokos took over for King in the third inning, the YSU offense still without a hit, and pitched two innings. He allowed one run on four hits and struck out two.
“They’re a good team and we knew that,” Krokos said. “Our offense struggled to hit their pitching and we [pitchers] had trouble closing out innings.”
Buckeyes starting pitcher Jacob Niggemeyer left the game with an injury after throwing just four pitches. He recorded one out and then on his first pitch to the second batter, he called for the training staff.
John Havird entered and didn’t allow a hit until the fourth inning. By then, the Buckeyes (35-15) had built a 3-0 lead. Pat Porter, a graduate of Kenston High School in Chagrin Falls, had a big day at the plate with three hits and four RBIs.
He put an exclamation point on the Buckeyes’ win with a two-run home run to right-center field in the eighth inning. YSU center fielder Frank Califano nearly made a play on the ball, but it appeared to hit the top of the wall and bounce over.
“The ball wasn’t really carrying tonight, so I was running out of the box and I saw it hit off [Califano’s] glove or something and bounce over,” Porter said. “I was pretty pumped to see it clear that wall.”
The Penguins (16-30) threatened in the sixth inning, thanks to a two-out double by Alex Larivee to put runners on second and third. But Brent Gillespie struck out swinging to end the inning.
“That was a tough matchup with lefty on lefty,” Larivee said of his teammate’s at-bat.
“But we gotta find a way to get the bats going and score some more runs this weekend to get on a roll before the tournament.”
YSU closes out the regular season at Horizon League-leading Illinois-Chicago for a three-game weekend series. The Penguins are already locked in as the fifth seed in the conference tournament, which begins May 20.