Sports

Ohio’s dugout celebrating after JR Nelson (#34) hit a homer. [Reece Merkel | WOUB Public Media]

Ohio Baseball players huddle pregame before their home opener against Butler on Feb. 28. [WOUB Public Media]

Ohio Baseball's Caleb Karll slides into home plate in a game vs Butler on Feb. 28. [HG Biggs WOUB Public Media]

Ohio pitcher Blake Gaskey high-fiving catcher Jackson Cauthron after a strong inning. [Reece Merkel | WOUB Public Media]

Ohio's dugout celebrating after JR Nelson (#34) hit a homer. [Reece Merkel | WOUB Public Media]

Ohio Baseball players celebrate in the dugout during a game vs. Butler on Feb. 28. [HG Biggs | WOUB Public Media]

An Ohio pitcher throwing a pitch at Bob Wren Stadium during the 2025 Season. [HG Biggs | WOUB Public Media]

Ohio LHP Hunter Winston (#30) looks on as a Morehead State baserunner leads off. [Reece Merkel | WOUB Public Media]

What went wrong for Ohio Baseball in 2025?

By: Marc Goldstein
Posted on: Sunday, May 18, 2025

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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — If the 2025 Ohio Baseball season was a movie, it appears as if this is part of the montage where the team simply cannot win games. A 14-37 record, including 9-21 in MAC play should illustrate enough, but the fact of the matter is that this iteration of the team is simply not good enough to win games.

Pitching

For a team that struggled on the mound in 2024 to the tune of an 8.29 team ERA, this season’s 8.30 team ERA is far from a step in the right direction. The team did not really add much in either the transfer portal or the recruiting trail in order to make up for the inadequacies that littered the roster last season on the bump. This all led to the Bobcats having the worst team ERA in the conference this season by a somewhat wide margin.

Ohio’s Hunter Winston throwing a pitch vs Dayton. [Reece Merkel | WOUB Public Media]

The ineffectiveness can be traced to a couple of main factors. The first is unforced errors. Walks and hit batters are the bane of any pitcher’s existence as they allow baserunners the opportunity to get aboard without actually earning that right with a hit. Although not an actual statistical category, Ohio had the most walks+hit batters in the MAC this season with 401.

The second factor in all of this was the inexperience. Dillon Masters was slated to be a mainstay in the rotation and that looked to be a positive after he dominated through his first two starts of the season. Unfortunately he went down with an injury seven starts into his senior campaign and missed the rest of the season. That forced Hunter Winston to be the Sunday starter, a role he might not have been ready for given his 26:41 strikeout-to-walk rate.

Graduate lefty Jacob Tate was supposed to be another key piece of the rotation, but struggled mightily in his first three outings that he was replaced by Hudson Boncal within a month of the season. All of these factors led to a very young pitching staff being forced to rely heavily on some younger, less experienced pitchers.

That is not to say that it was all negative. There were moments where Blake Gaskey looked like an ace as his start on March 6 against Bowling Green where he went seven strong innings was superb and offered a glimmer of hope for the rest of the season. Boncal had a stretch of three starts to conclude March where he struck out 18 and only walked six while allowing just four earned runs. Ethan Stewart came out of nowhere to be a stabilizing force in the bullpen, leading the team with a 1.80 ERA in 20.0 innings.

Hitting

The offense was one of the things that the Bobcats did best in 2025, although even that was a little bit up-and-down. The addition of JT Heenan to the coaching staff seemingly did wonders for the team. Multiple players mentioned that his addition was a breath of fresh air and allowed for new ideas and philosophies to be spread, which is a good thing for the program. The offense scored 6.59 runs per game, significantly better than the 6.02 mark put up in 2024. Additionally, the Bobcats hit more home runs (62) and doubles (106) than last season while having a higher batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage.

An Ohio batter up against VMI on Friday, April 11. [Reece Merkel | WOUB Public Media]

Individually, this season was a boon for a number of players. Ben Slanker became a star for Ohio, smashing 21 homers with 69 RBI. Slanker’s standout season tied him for second place for home runs and fourth place for RBI in a season for an Ohio batter. Matt Ineich made a big impact in his freshman campaign, hitting .387 this season. Trae Cassidy emerged as a reliable middle-of-the-order bat with his 15 doubles this year while JR Nelson and Pauly Mancino both were very effective this season before having their years cut short by injuries.

That is another aspect that sank the Bobcats: health. With the exception of Slanker, the majority of the hitting core for the Bobcats missed some time with injury. Nelson and Mancino missed about a third of the year and Ineich missed the majority of the final month of the year. Additionally, Nick Dolan was absent for the final handful of series with an injury. Adding onto that, Masters missed a lot of time and countless more injuries that went unreported on the pitching staff.

The most important thing for Ohio this offseason will be keeping all of the aforementioned players in Athens for the foreseeable future as Slanker, Ineich, Cassidy, Nelson and Mancino are all underclassmen that can be built around in the future.

Veterans like Dolan and Trenton Neuer provided invaluable leadership to this crop of young hitters and those contributions will be sorely missed, but the time is now for the young Bobcat batters to take full control of the future of this program.

The future

A season that included so much losing can be perplexing. On one hand, there is a low probability of a season worse than this one coming in 2026. On the other hand, there are no signs that point to the pitching getting any better. Regardless of the performances in the rotation, Gaskey and Boncal are both seniors and, while Gaskey can use his additional eligibility that comes from playing in junior college, the two provided length every time out. The pair easily led the team in innings with over 65 each with the next closest pitcher being Winston with just under 40. Without a clear and obvious successor to take over in the rotation, there might not be sunnier days on the mound for Ohio.

Ohio pitcher Hudson Boncal celebrating with catcher Jackson Cauthron. [Reece Merkel | WOUB Public Media]

The offense, though, should continue to flourish. With a full season of at-bats for Slanker, Ineich and the rest of the offense, the expectation should be to maintain the level of production from season to season. There are holes to fill in at least one infield and outfield spot with the departures of Dolan and Neuer, but there are some players in place to make those moves to usurp the starting roles left behind.

The bottom line is that Ohio just concluded its third consecutive season without a berth in the MAC Tournament. For a program as proud as this one, that is a very hard pill to swallow. Moreover, the MAC is no longer a weak conference that a mediocre team can win; the top of the conference is made up of teams that are strong units from top to bottom. This season, Ohio went 4-14 against the six teams that are going to the MAC Tournament en route to the last place finish in the league. The rest of the MAC has appeared to take steps forward while Ohio is stuck in the past; that needs to change before it is left in the dust.