How Ohio State baseball coach Justin Haire turned program around

Ohio State baseball coach Justin Haire is not satisfied yet.

He obviously wasn’t pleased when the Buckeyes finished the 2025 season with a 13-37 record in his debut year. Nor did he want to finish last in the Big Ten with five conference wins.

But when the tables turned, and Ohio State found itself in the midst of a historic turnaround, Haire kept his head down. His vision of turning the program into a Midwest powerhouse, his quest to become a top-25 national program, is incomplete.

Heading into the Big Ten Tournament, Ohio State is the No. 6 seed and faces No. 11 Washington at 10 p.m. May 19. It is their highest seed since 2016. The Buckeyes surpassed their conference win total from last season by April 4 this year. Even finishing the month of April with a 7-8 record was a sign of improvement.

To start May, Ohio State flipped the conference on its head. They swept juggernaut Nebraska, the No. 16 team in the country, in a three-game series in Columbus, winning 2-1, 7-3 and 10-1.

After winning their final home series against Michigan State, the Buckeyes wrapped up their season at Michigan. They had not won in a series Ann Arbor since 1999. The Buckeyes didn’t just take a series win, they clobbered the Wolverines, winning 13-2, 7-3 and 8-1 in sweeping Michigan for the first time since 1999.

An Ohioan, Haire took pride in the feat. He thinks it’s a good measure of improvement since he was hired in 2024.

Haire has high hopes for his turnaround of the Ohio State program. He was born and raised in Hamilton, and many of his friends and family, including his dad, two brothers and two sisters, live in the area. Many of them are Ohio State fans, and he wants to make sure the baseball program is firmly a program to be proud of.

“It’s an important sport in the state, and we want to do a good job of keeping those kids at home, and keeping the right ones in the scarlet and gray, and be back on the forefront of the national scene,” Haire said.

After an underwhelming 2025 season, Haire knew big changes had to happen. He and his staff brought in 16 transfers in the offseason. He was after a specific trait: a “blue-collar” work ethic, players with chips on their shoulders that could reflect the identity of Midwest baseball. There’s no questioning Haire’s authority to define the region’s style of play. He played at Bowling Green and won the 2001 MAC Championship before finishing his career at the University of Indianapolis.

As the 2025 season unfolded, Ohio State’s pitching unraveled, posting a WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) of 2.08 and a staff ERA of 9.62, last in the conference. Ohio State also led the Big Ten in opponent walks and batting average and was second in opponent home runs. Haire said he was aware early on the depth and talent of the staff would become a problem.

“You can’t win if you can’t pitch, and we really needed to raise the floor of our staff last year,” Haire said. “… We were holding onto dear life at times.”

For Haire, the “floor,” is the competitive edge. He acknowledged that the top-end “stuff,” or talent of his pitchers, increased with the incoming players, but the improvement has been reflected in the grittiness of his staff’s performances, not how much break a slider had or how fast a heater was.

“When you build that foundation, in a really solid, positive way, it gives you the opportunity to be able to play defense behind them, to be able to score runs, to be able to stay in games, to be able to find ways to win games late, and that’s what we’ve been able to do this year,” Haire said.

The Buckeyes lowered their season WHIP to 1.54 and ERA to 5.45 in 2026, which ranks ninth in the 17-team Big Ten.

Results stood out among the Buckeyes’ transfer acquisitions, including pitchers Lincoln McVicker (4.04 ERA) and Ryan Zamora (3.93 ERA), both formerly junior college pitchers who became vital bullpen pieces as their physical strength progressed. Zamora allowed no earned runs in his final four appearances on the season, while McVicker allowed one.

Haire also saw improvement in the rotation from Rend Lake College transfer Pierce Herrenbrouck, who earned wins in the final three conference series for Ohio State. Chris Domke, a transfer from Youngstown State last year who missed 2025 with an injury, pitched a complete game against Michigan, allowing one run while striking out six. He is the first OSU player to throw a nine-inning complete game since 2021.

Player retention was also key, but Haire felt his players became hungrier to change the tide, with key returners such as second baseman Lee Ellis, starting pitcher Gavin Kuzniewski and catcher Mason Eckelman. Eckelman was so bought in, he helped bring back his cousin Henry Kaczmar, who transferred from Ohio State to South Carolina last season in hopes of improving his MLB draft stock.

Kaczmar, who grew up an Ohio State fan in Bath, Ohio, said his homecoming senior year has been the best of his life.

“[Mason] had nothing but good things to say about the coaching staff here and how well they developed the culture in their programs,” said Kaczmar.

Haire called Kaczmar in the offseason and told him he’d help win Ohio State a Big Ten championship. The enthusiasm and confidence from Haire was enough for Kaczmar to make the move.

Kaczmar also found it refreshing Haire is a “younger guy” (he is 45) and formed a good relationship early. Before every game, Kaczmar says Haire tells the team to “punch them in the mouth,” an analogy to surprise their opponents and make the first moves. That motto rang true in the surprise sweeps of Michigan and Nebraska.

A reliable hitter with the Gamecocks, Kaczmar’s game elevated in 2026, and he posted his best offensive season. He hit .319 with a .989 OPS, nearly doubling his home run total and hitting 17 more doubles than his previous season. He is one double short of the single-season program record.

Besides working with the Ohio State hitting staff to improve his pull-side power and hinge technique, Kaczmar said the rejuvenated team culture is contagious to performance and better than any previous year. He noted the team’s walkup songs as a spark for the fans and the environment, such as leadoff hitter Alex Bemis’ choice: “Here Comes the Money,” the WWE entrance for Shane McMahon.

Kaczmar’s song is “Bam Bam” by Sister Nancy, a reggae classic.