Ohio State became the latest Big Ten team to turn the broom on Northwestern, holding the Wildcats to three runs over the course of a three-game sweep.
“Obviously, there were quite a few things that didn’t go our direction this week,” coach Paul Stevens said. “I’m not buying a lottery ticket because we just didn’t get any of the breaks the weekend provided.”
NU (16-29, 5-16 Big Ten) made it through the entire 2011 season without suffering a sweep at the hands of a Big Ten foe. This season, the Cats have already been swept by four conference opponents and have lost their last seven Big Ten games.
“This season has definitely been different,” junior pitcher Luke Farrell said. “Dealing with a sweep is never easy, and dealing with as many as we’ve had is very tough, especially with the way we’ve lost.”
As for their offense, a weekend in Columbus brought about the Cats’ second lowest output of the season in a conference series, and they now rank dead last in the Big Ten in batting average, doubles, triples and runs during the conference slate.
“There are lots of ways to score runs,” senior outfielder Hamilton Wise said. “You don’t have to hit triples and bombs to do that, but obviously it helps when you do that, and we’ve kind of hit a spell where no one has been able to get really big hits like that.”
Senior hurler Francis Brooke was on the right side of a pitcher’s duel going into the fourth inning of the series opener, when the Buckeyes (27-20, 11-10 Big Ten) tagged him for two runs. They tacked on an insurance run in the eighth inning. Despite Brooke’s second straight complete game, the Cats were unable to convert nine singles into a win, falling 3-1.
In the second game of Saturday’s twinbill, opportunities were few and far between for the Cats. Freshman hurler Brandon Magallones was pulled after surrendering six runs in his shortest start of the Big Ten season, and NU was never able to climb out of an early 5-0 hole. Rightfielder David Corna drove in four of Ohio State’s seven runs, but nearly every Buckeyes batter joined in on the fun, with eight different hitters recording a base knock.
Whereas the Cats left plenty of runners on base in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader, they were generally escorted straight to the dugout by Buckeyes hurler Brian King in the nightcap. The junior surrendered just four hits and an earned run in his first complete-game effort of the season.
In Sunday’s series finale, Farrell made his first Big Ten start of the season after a number of impressive midweek performances. The ace of last year’s pitching rotation, Farrell was the victim of a wild first inning in which the Buckeyes scored three runs despite recording just one hit in the frame. They were helped by two balks and a throwing error by sophomore shortstop Kyle Ruchim.
“I’ll be honest. I was a little bit confused with the calls,” Farrell said. “I didn’t change anything in my delivery from what I’ve done for years, ever since high school, so when they called two balks in the first inning, I was pretty surprised.”
After falling behind 3-0, the Cats had plenty of opportunities to draw even in the first several innings. NU recorded multiple baserunners in three straight innings, but the Cats were unable to push any runs across and ended up losing 4-1.
