Ohio State junior left-handed pitcher Seth Lonsway (11) pitches during the Ohio State-Indiana game on April 3. Ohio State won 6-0. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor
Taking Buckeyes lefty Seth Lonsway at face value proved a mistake Saturday.
Lonsway, a redshirt junior who started the season 0-3, struck out 17 Hoosier hitters in a complete-game shutout performance across the seven-inning opening game. He left those who only knew his body of work on paper — and those who knew he was capable of this — speechless.
“Lonsway was great. You know he’s got all the stuff to beat anybody, and when he’s on, he’s on,” sophomore outfielder Mitchell Okuley said. “Today was one of the best performances I’ve seen from a pitcher in college baseball.”
He started with three straight innings of striking out the side.
Although he said he didn’t know it at the time, Lonsway accomplished the rare feat of throwing an immaculate inning — when a pitcher throws nine strikes on nine pitches, striking out all three hitters — in the second inning.
There have only been 101 immaculate innings in the MLB’s 152-year history.
Lonsway continued his dominance in the final four innings, striking out eight of the final 13 Indiana hitters he faced. He capped off his performance with a strikeout looking.
“I don’t know what I can say; I mean, the line speaks for itself. He was dominating,” head coach Greg Beals said Saturday. “Seth has got dynamic stuff, and he was absolutely on today.”
Lonsway recorded 17-of-21 — an astronomical 81 percent — of his outs via strikeout. The next highest rate from a starter this season was junior right-hander Jack Neely, whose March 28 outing against Maryland registered 73 percent of his outs on strikeouts.
The Celina, Ohio, native entered the matchup sixth in the Big Ten in strikeouts with 27. After sitting down 17 Hoosiers, he now ranks third in the conference with 44, trailing Indiana sophomore right-hander McCade Brown by five.
Lonsway is no stranger to punch-outs, though.
In four starts in 2020, his 42 strikeouts in 18 innings ranked best in the nation for strikeouts per nine innings at 21.
He has hung in the top 50 in that category this season, but Saturday’s dominance propelled him to 16th in the nation at 14.31 strikeouts per nine innings.
“He’s throwing the fastball to get ahead and then they have to be active on that breaking ball, and that breaking ball is so good, especially today when it’s on,” Beals said.
The southpaw also managed to hold opposing hitters to a 2-for-23 clip for an opponent batting average of .087. The effort propelled Lonsway to the lowest batting average against in the conference at .137 for the year.
Lonsway was able to achieve this feat by keeping his pitches in the strike zone.
He threw 64-of-95 pitches for strikes, recording a strike percentage of 67.4.
Lonsway said coming into the season that he wanted to limit his walk rates, which is something he has struggled with in the early going leading the Buckeyes in that category with 16 free passes allowed.
However, this weekend was a different story.
He only walked one hitter — his season average entering Saturday was 3.75 walks per game, now down to 3.2 — and only allowed three three-ball counts all game.
“Just from the first inning, I felt confident that I was going to command the ball well and pound the zone,” Lonsway said. “I was constantly thinking about getting strike one on the board. That first inning felt good, found my groove and just kept rolling with it.”
Lonsway also did not hit any batters or throw any wild pitches, which he ranks highest and second-highest in the Big Ten, respectively.
Ohio State’s No. 2 starter in the rotation had not yet tapped into his potential up to this point in the season, but Saturday he showed what he can do when he is at his best.
“That kid prepares and works his butt off, so I wasn’t even surprised, to be honest,” junior shortstop Zach Dezenzo said. “He deserves that and he is very capable of doing that every start, every time out. I’m excited to see him continue to work on that and continue to grow on that moving forward.”
