If a team were 8.5 games under .500 nearing the halfway point of the season, it would be time to sound the alarm, yes?
Many outside the Ohio baseball program would likely agree. But coach Rob Smith does not see it that way. Even after a tough loss like the Bobcats’ 15-10 against Xavier Tuesday evening, his mantra remains unchanged.
“We are on our quest to get 12 wins,” he said. “I think that’s what gets us in the conference tournament. We have to find a way to get to 12.”
Based on last year’s Mid-American Conference Tournament seeding, if Smith gets his team to that magic number this season, the Bobcats would carve out one of eight tournament spots come the third week in May.
The Bobcats finished their conference slate at 16-11 in former coach Joe Carbone’s final season and were seeded fourth in the tournament.
Twelve wins sounds like a reasonable goal based upon how the season has developed.
Sophomores Jake Madsen and Tyler Wells, whom Carbone anointed as the core of the team, are still young and continuing to develop as players. With junior middle infielder Garrett Black gone for the season with a back injury, more youth has been injected into the fold.
Pitching has been the main disappointment for the Bobcats, being that they allow more than seven runs per contest.
Gone from a year ago are Ohio’s three weekend starters: Brent Choban, Jason Moulton and Seth Streich, who was drafted by the Oakland Athletics.
Smith has relied heavily on inexperience this season. He’s made freshman Jake Miller Ohio’s No. 1 starter and has converted position players to pitchers.
Brad Przebieda, a junior, and Logan Cozart, a sophomore, have filled in admirably, but the staff continues to falter.
“It’s a lack of depth, it’s a lack of experience, it’s not having some guys that have competed at this level enough,” Smith said. “In some cases, we are asking guys to do a lot more than either what they are prepared to do or capable of doing.”
Against the Musketeers, 10 Bobcat runs crossed the dish and the team amassed 18 hits. When putting up numbers like that, Smith is right — the team should be winning more games.
Pitching just continues to be the Bobcats’ bane, but it’s hard to be hypercritical of a coach that is in his first year heading a youth-laden lineup.
Smith specializes in pitching, so I expect that in a year or two, the bullpen will be more full of experienced hurlers. Miller will only continue to get better.
Being a new coach is like trying to fit together a 3-D puzzle. It looks difficult when all the pieces are dumped out of the box, but when given time, it could turn out as a masterpiece.
Nick Robbe is a senior studying journalism and sports editor for The Post. Chat baseball with him at nr225008@ohiou.edu.
