Joe Carbone does not know how to explain his Bobcats' early road struggles. With a 7-2 loss to Northern Illinois yesterday Ohio dropped to 0-8 in road games this season.
On the road the other team has been scoring more runs than we have
Carbone said. I don't know what the answer is we just have been outscored on the road.
Ohio's 7-2 loss to the Huskies yesterday completed a three-game sweep for Northern Illinois and extended the Bobcats' losing streak to four games. Ohio dropped the series opener 6-4 and also lost 5-4 in 10 innings against the Huskies (11-7, 3-0 Mid-American Conference) on Saturday.
The whole game comes down to pitching Carbone said. We have to do a better job pitching and we have to do a better job fielding. We had our pitchers get four or five outs and that hurt us.
Ohio (9-10, 0-3 MAC) managed only five hits and two runs against the Huskies yesterday after tallying 12 hits in Saturday's 5-4 loss.
They pitched very well against us in today's game
Carbone said. Their pitcher did a good job pitching backwards by throwing changeups and breaking balls in fastball counts.
Dan Weiss (2-3) lost his second-consecutive game for the Bobcats yesterday, giving up five runs, three earned in four innings pitched.
It's disappointing
I started out decent
but I couldn't finish at the end
Weiss said. I put a little pressure on the bullpen early
which hurts especially since we played an extra-inning game Saturday.
Carbone added that the Bobcats' starters must pitcher deeper into games or Ohio's bullpen will wear down by the end of a three-game series.
They went about four or five innings
and we had to go to our bullpen right away
Carbone said. That put a lot of pressure on our bullpen especially on day three.
One bright spot for the Bobcats this weekend was outfielder Jared Willis who was the only Ohio player to record multiple hits against the Huskies' pitchers.
I was mainly focusing on trying to hit line-drives and groundballs
Willis said. The wind was blowing in and wasn't conducive to a lot of home runs or extra-base hits so I was just trying to hit the ball on the ground.
Weiss said the Bobcats have two months to improve on their lackluster start in the conference.
It's kind of a disappointment to start 0-3 in conference play but there are still eight weeks remaining in conference play to turn it around.
Quick stats...
NORTHERN ILLINOIS 6, OHIO 4
Saturday, Ralph McKinzie Field
DeKalb, Ill.
WP: Trevor Feeney, 2-2
LP: Matt Schlarb, 3-1
NORTHERN ILLINOIS 5, OHIO 4
Saturday, Ralph McKinzie Field
DeKalb, Ill.
WP: Andy Deain, 1-1
LP: Andrew Shisila, 0-1
NORTHERN ILLINOIS 7, OHIO 2
Sunday, Ralph McKinzie Field
DeKalb, Ill.
WP: Matt Jernstad, 2-1
