Baseball: Buckeyes travel to Ann Arbor where an intense rivalry is renewed on the baseball diamond

There are very few rivalries that compare to Ohio State versus Michigan and while it’s often associated with football, this weekend installs the biggest baseball series in 2024 for both the Buckeyes and the Wolverines.

Since 1999, the matchup between the two teams is almost even as Ohio State owns a 35-34 record against the Wolverines, but a three-game sweep by the Buckeyes in 2023 gives all the momentum to Ohio State.

Junior starting pitcher Gavin Bruni, who earned a win against Michigan to end the season last year, acknowledged the importance of this series.

“It means the world to us. I mean, we go up there, they come down here, we don’t want to lose to those guys. That’s the bottom line, you beat Michigan. So it’s a big deal,” Bruni said.

Ohio State (18-15, 5-4 Big Ten) currently is tied with Indiana for fifth place in the Big Ten while Michigan (18-20, 8-4 Big Ten), despite a losing record, is tied with Purdue for third in the conference. Since the beginning of fall ball for the 2024 Buckeyes, head coach Bill Mosiello has been preaching the importance of Big Ten baseball games, he said.

”The whole goal for this club is to be ready to try to win the Big Ten,” Mosiello said. “We’re battle-tested so there’s really not much that we should fear.”

The Buckeyes’ ‘battle-tested’ schedule is the 26th hardest in Division 1, which is the highest ranked difficulty of schedule in the Big Ten conference. The Wolverines’ schedule, though, lies at the 57th hardest, something that Mosiello said is still a very good schedule.

“I’ll give them some credit, If you look through their schedule, they played a lot of good teams early too like we did,” Mosiello said. “They haven’t played as good of games in some of the other ones, but they played their better games when it counted in the conference.”

Michigan has won four-straight Big Ten series and they are coming off a 6-4 midweek game against Toledo. What makes the Wolverines special is their multiple two-way players.

Although sophomore Mitch Voit will likely pitch against the Buckeyes this weekend, he will also hit and be used as a utility-man on the field. Hitting-wise, he leads Michigan in RBI’s and ranks third with a .312 batting average; his 16 doubles also tie him for first in the Big Ten. On the mound, he leads the team with 57 innings pitched and 38 strikeouts while his five wins tie him for third in the conference.

Another player that pitches and hits is junior catcher Will Rogers. When he’s not behind the plate, Rogers steps in as a reliever and his last four outings have all been in Big Ten games.

The Wolverine bullpen is led by southpaw Jacob Denner who has dominated Big Ten competition. He owns a 1.42 earned run average (ERA) and has .88 walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) in his 25.1 innings pitched against Big Ten teams. Both stats are good for third in the conference.

Michigan, as a team, is near the bottom of the Big Ten with a .263 batting average and a 6.27 collective ERA, in comparison to Ohio State’s .272 batting average and 5.68 ERA.

The Wolverines have an unpredictable pitching rotation as they tend to send out different starters each weekend, but sophomore Kurt Barr will likely pitch as he is coming off a complete game against Maryland.

Meanwhile, for the Buckeyes, their weekend starters are practically set. Sophomore ace Landon Beidelschies will go on Friday followed by Bruni on Saturday and freshman Gavin DeVooght on Sunday.

Beidelschies is third in the Big Ten with 61 strikeouts and he owns a 3.93 ERA through nine starts. Graduate captain Justin Eckhardt leads the Big Ten in saves with six.

Hitting-wise, Ohio State’s lineup consists of five players batting above .290 and is led by sophomore shortstop Henry Kaczmar who is hitting .326.

Before committing to Ohio State in 2022, Kaczmar was a Michigan commit for a long stretch of time. While this series is very important for Big Ten standing it also has some extra meaning behind it, Kaczmar said.

”Obviously there’s going to be a chip on our shoulder for everyone, not just myself, because it’s ‘The Team Up North,’ but we’re gonna come out and attack and attack and we’ll see how it goes,” Kaczmar said.

On the 2024 Buckeyes roster, 27 newcomers will become part of the Michigan versus Ohio State rivalry. Junior transfer from John A. Logan Nick Giamarusti said he’s looking forward to being involved in the fierce competition.
“It’s cool, I’ve always wanted to be in a rivalry like this,” Giamarusti said. “It’s gonna be a very important weekend for us and I think we have what it takes to win.”

In three of the Wolverines’ four Big Ten series, they have dropped the first game before coming back the next two days and winning them both. For the Buckeyes, they will focus on taking each game one-at-a-time in the current series, Mosiello said.

”Winning the first game would be humongous,” Mosiello said. “In order to win the Big Ten we need to start sweeping but again that’s so far away we need to just win the first game first.”

The games will begin at Ray Fisher Stadium in Ann Arbor, Michigan on Friday at 6 p.m. The following games on Saturday and Sunday have a 2 p.m. start time and a 1 p.m. start time, respectively.

The three games will be streamed on Big Ten Plus.