Ohio State (Painfully) Exits NCAA Regional
A 24-8 loss to Georgia put Ohio State in the Losers’ Bracket in the Tallahassee Regional. A 37-6 loss to Florida State finished the job. The details aren’t pretty, so women, children, the elderly and the weak of heart may want to turn away. This game featured the following:
- Florida State scoring 37 runs on 38 hits.
- Ohio State committing 5 field errors.
- Florida State scoring 8 runs in the first, 9 runs in the 3rd and 11 runs in the fifth. The sixth and seventh innings were the only innings where the Seminoles did not score a run.
- Florida State jumping out to a 32-0 lead before Ohio State put its own runs on the scoreboard in the bottom of the fifth.
- Jared Strayer, who appears to have started for the Buckeyes this game, was not able to get a single out. He gave up a double, single, hit a batter, gave up a double, threw a wild pitch, gave up a single and walked two batters before being chased. He had 7 earned runs charged to him.
- Theron Minium pitched the longest for the Buckeyes. He gave Ohio State 2 2/3rd innings and gave up only one hit.
- Drew Rucinski gave Ohio State 2/3rds of an inning, giving up 8 hits and 7 earned runs in the process.
- Andrew Armstrong contributed 1/3rd of an inning, giving up 9 hits and 11 earned runs in the process.
The “festivities” — shall we say — got so lopsided that… wait for it… game officials honestly looked into the possibility of invoking a mercy rule. However, no such stipulation exists for college baseball.
The game was so one-sided that FSU officials inquired midway through the game whether the NCAA would allow the teams to invoke a ”mercy rule” after seven innings. But (FSU coach Mike) Martin said the NCAA denied the request, citing a rule that all postseason games must last nine innings. That gave the Seminoles a chance to deliver an additional six hits and five runs.
Fantastic. Now, if only there had been Capri Sun and orange slices waiting in a cooler for the kids after the game, it’d be just like little league.
Considering the softball losses to Georgia earlier, I think this may mean that Ohio State athletics is done for the school year. That said, if we had to go down in the most ignominous crash ever, at least we took Georgia — last year’s national finalist — down with us. How do you like us now, Georgia. The 13-6 victory over the Bulldogs earlier Sunday afternoon set up the doubleheader with Florida State.
Elsewhere… Happy Thoughts
- Bucknuts received an update from Jim Tressel’s voyage overseas to visit military personnel. As you can imagine, the comments regarding how Tressel carries himself have been overwhelmingly positive. In this update, apparently His Coachness Sir Rick Neuheisel predicts a Buckeye victory over the Trojans in Columbus. If His Coachness decrees this victory, and it indeed happens, then He truly is the Platonic ideal of beauty brought down from the aether for our enlightenment.
- The Dispatch published an article that I thought was surprisingly on the accusatory side regarding Ohio State’s athletic program. Admitting that most of the violations are minor, self-reported in nature, it still suggests that Ohio State is hiding behind FERPA when it heavily redacts documents on the matter. Ohio State leads all athletic programs around the country in these violations, but the jaw-dropping number drops substantially when you limit the programs considered to 17. 17 is about the number of teams that most athletic departments field; Ohio State fields almost twice that. It’s still a must-read. The story of Derek Morris is unfortunate, especially because he would later end up as nothing special for NC State. There’s a veiled reference to Terrelle Pryor at the end. Still, here’s the lesson here kids: FERPA is a significant barrier to us knowing more about what’s going on here.
- Speaking of Terrelle Pryor, he was just profiled by Rittenberg as the 8th top player in the Big Ten.
- Phil Steele is predicting a second-place Big Ten finish for Ohio State and a visit to the Sugar Bowl to play Ole Miss.
I thought it was a 24-8 loss to Georgia
It was. Mea culpa.
One thing I’ve noticed – newswriters love to bitch about anything that makes their life hard. Fans don’t care if Lebron James goes home after an emotional loss, or if Pryor goes to a press conference before the bowl game, or about how many completely minor NCAA violations someone has. The reporters do, because it makes their life a lot more difficult. And so suddenly Lebron James is a poor sport and OSU’s number of violations is news (despite the fact that all of them were self-reported and the vast majority were self-reported and so minor as to be a “who cares” to any normal person. Even the Michigan blogs made less of a deal of it.
On the Dispatch article……………….
I stopped reading it part way through. For obvious reasons, the media is biased.
#1 I would suspect we have more reported is that we are honest . ( for the most part ) As compared to other major programs.
#2 Contrary to what the ” MEDIA ” thinks, we are dealing with student athletes here. And as long as the NCAA and Ohio State are taking care of the issues together , I don’t give a flying fart if Ohio State removes names or certain things to not let the biased media to run a story spinning it a certain way.
If our players were involved in a 30 plus player cheating scam …….ala Florida State or the guns and drug issues players seem to have down here at THEEE University of Florida………yea that crap is a story and needs to be seriously addressed , and printed.
Another article I read from the Cleveland Plane Dealer……….about Laurenitis having dinner paid for by Gordon Gee .
…………….I mean c’mon , the media is really scrapping the bottom of the barrell aren’t they???