To call Ohio State’s 2025 baseball season “rough” would be an understatement.
Going 5-25 in conference and 13-37 overall, the Buckeyes won just slightly more than a quarter of their games in head coach Justin Haire’s first season, good for last place in the Big Ten in 2025.
To put it bluntly, it would be hard for Haire to take the program anywhere but up from there.
Haire, who came to Ohio State after ten seasons at Campbell University in North Carolina, is taking the challenge head-on. The team spent
the offseason going back to the drawing board, overhauling the roster in an attempt to rebuild.
When the team opened 2026 with a three-game sweep of Saint Louis University, things briefly looked up before taking a turn toward deja vu, after that season-opening sweep turned into a 5-10 start.
Still, in recent weeks, the team has course-corrected from the eight-game losing streak that began at the end of March, winning seven straight—their longest win streak since 2023—and eleven of their last twelve. This past weekend marked the Buckeyes’ third consecutive weekend sweep, this time at home against Maryland, bringing their record to 17-13.
It took nearly a year, but not only have they already surpassed the win total of the entire 2025 season, they finally seem to have found a rhythm and, in turn, a new identity.
Some of the faces involved in this turnaround are familiar: The team is led by Henry Kaczmar, who spent his first two years at OSU before playing for South Carolina in 2025. After transferring back for the 2026 season, Kaczmar is batting .344 on the season, logging six hits and six RBIs across the series against Maryland this weekend. Junior Mason Eckelman is back for his third season with the Buckeyes, leading the team in RBIs with 33 and in on-base percentage at .432. Lee Ellis, who brought tremendous speed and athleticism to the team last year when healthy, returns for his junior season, currently leading the team in stolen bases, with 12 bases stolen on 13 attempts.
Others are brand new: Alex Bemis and Dane Harvey, both new additions to the team, are tied as the team’s home run leader with six apiece. They’re not the only ones, either. Haire brought in 23 new additions—including 16 transfers—piecing together a highly athletic, balanced team.
With this many new faces, a few growing pains are understandable, so I’m willing to look past the rocky start, given how in sync things have been over the past three weeks. While I’ll wait a little longer to formally call it a comeback, the turnaround is certainly encouraging.
What is perhaps most promising for this group of guys is the palpable confidence shift. After grinding in the offseason, their eight-game losing streak could have derailed any momentum had they allowed it to get to their heads. Instead, they pushed harder, staring down adversity with consistency and composure and coming away with big wins in the process.
The question now is whether this team can sustain its recent success through the remainder of Big Ten conference play. Every team that successfully rebuilds has a moment where things click into place. Perhaps OSU has already reached that fork in the road, with this recent success marking a larger turning point for the team. The Buckeyes have six remaining weekend series against Big Ten teams in which to make their case.
After facing Bowling Green tonight, the Buckeyes’ first chance to continue their strong conference run will come this weekend when they welcome Penn State at home for a three-game series.
From there, weekend series against Purdue, Rutgers, Nebraska, Michigan State, and Michigan await them in Big Ten play. If the Buckeyes can sustain their recent offensive production and pitching efforts for the rest of the season, it could prove this isn’t a temporary surge but rather a true program shift, one that’s sure to be worth watching.
