The Ohio State Baseball team opened its season today against Boston College in the Desert Classic. Bill Mosiello’s Buckeyes could make noise in the Big Ten this year. 

Recap of Last Season

Ohio State Baseball finished last season with a 31-25 record under first-year manager Bill Mosiello who was one of the best assistant coaches in college baseball before coming to Columbus. He has helped develop over ninety MLB players, fourteen of whom have been first-round picks.

Twenty-eight all-stars have come through his regime and three current MLB managers. With five trips to the College World Series in his career, he has had a successful career as a coach. He came to Columbus with winning standards, and he wanted to start winning right away.

The 2024 campaign seems like it could be one of the best in the team’s recent history.

Game Analysis 

Opening Day started in hot and sunny Phoenix, Arizona for the Desert Classic against the Boston College Eagles who are coming off a 37-20 record and a decent showing in the Tuscaloosa region of the NCAA tournament. The Eagles are under new management with Todd Interdonato. He replaces Mike Gambino who left to take the Penn State job this offseason.

Ohio State’s season started with a magnificent inning by starting pitcher Landon Beidelschies, who did not throw a ball and struck two batters out. The Bottom of the first started with a Trey Lipsey leadoff triple and later scored off a wild pitch. The second inning is where the Eagles started to get red hot. Vince Cimini singled to left field, and then John Collins right after hit a double to left field to put Boston College up 2-1.

Nick Wang, who started his career at Holy Cross, launched a ball to left field to put the Eagles up 3-1. Cameron Leary drew a walk and then stole a base which put him in scoring position right away. Beidelschies was able to force Landwehr to strike out for his third of the game. Vince Cimini came back up to bat with a runner at second looking to extend the Boston College lead. However, Beidelschies balked which sent Leary to third base. Cimini ended up flying out to end the inning with the Buckeyes trailing by two runs.

Catcher Matthew Graveline drew a walk which led to a Joseph Mershon line drive to bring Graveline home to cut the Eagles lead to one run. Not much happened in the fourth and fifth innings, Beidelschies was able to strike out three more Boston College batters to bring his total to six strikeouts on the afternoon. But was pulled after the fourth inning, totaling 78 pitches (48 strikes).

Zach Brown took over in the fifth inning and did not have a great afternoon on the mound. He allowed three hits, three walks, and one home run to the man of the afternoon, Vince Cimini.

Fast forward to the eighth inning where Boston College wrapped the game up with scoring four runs in the top half. Logan Jones replaced Zach Brown in the seventh inning and the first batter he faced took the ball 372 feet to left field to extend the Eagles lead to four. Cohl Mercado is able to single and drive in another run for Boston College to extend the lead to five, and then Kyle Wolff hit a sac fly to draw in another Eagle run.

Tim Baird, who only saw one game of action last season after being shut down with a season-ending injury, was the pitching change for Logan Jones. Barry Walsh stole second base, then a throwing error by Tyler Pettorini drew in another Boston College run to make it a 9-2 ballgame in the eighth.

Ohio State fell to 0-1 on the season with a lot of opportunities for growth ahead of them. The Buckeyes finished today with three hits and four errors which will never win a ballgame.

The Ohio State baseball team looks to rebound against BYU on Saturday night in the second of three games in the Desert Classic.