Oklahoma Baseball: Cody Thomas’ Focus on Baseball Paying Off

Former Sooner quarterback Cody Thomas decided to leave the football program after last season and focus his attention and athletic effort on the single sport of Oklahoma baseball.

Over the last month, Sooner baseball has reaped the fruits of that life-changing decision. Thomas entered Friday night’s Bedlam battle with in-state rival Oklahoma State as Oklahoma’s hottest hitter over the past 30 days. Since April 12, the junior outfielder/designated hitter was batting .469 with 15 hits in 32 plate appearances.

Thomas’ sizzling hot bat continued in the opener of the Bedlam series on Friday at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in nearby Oklahoma City and proved to be the difference in the Sooners 9-1 win over 15th-ranked Oklahoma State. He had a three-run jack over the right-center-field fence in the top half of the fourth inning that erased a 1-0 OSU lead and gave Oklahoma and right-handed pitcher Jake Irvin all they would need to defeat the Cowboys and even the season series between the Bedlam rivals at one game apiece. It was Thomas’ sixth home run of the season, third best on the team.

The former Oklahoma quarterback also had a double in Friday’s game, going two for five for at the plate and driving in five of the Sooners’ nine runs. Last Sunday, in a 12-0 Oklahoma win over Kansas State, Thomas had the first three-hit game in his career, including a two-run first-inning home run.

Thomas was highly recruited in both football and baseball out of high school in Colleyville, Texas. He played football at OU for three seasons, starting at quarterback in three games in 2014 in place of the injured Trevor Knight. The Sooners were 2-1 in those three games.

The two-sport OU star was on the Sooners’ baseball roster his freshman season, appearing in 14 games, but sat out the baseball season a year ago.

The Sooners’ 9-1 win over the Cowboys (31-16, 12-7) snapped a six-game OSU winning streak and extended OU’s current win streak to three games. It also all but eliminated Oklahoma State from the regular-season conference race. The Cowboys now trail Texas Tech by five games in the win column with just five games left against Big 12 opponents.

The Sooners and Cowboys continue their three-game series with games Saturday and Sunday in Tulsa.

Here are a few more things you might like to know from Oklahoma’s 9-1 baseball romp over Oklahoma State:

• The game was delayed by bad weather in the top half of the sixth inning. The delay lasted two hours and eight minutes.
• The Oklahoma State starting pitcher, Thomas Hatch, had not given up an earned run in 38 2/3 innings before the Sooners’ Cody Thomas went deep in the fourth inning with two runners aboard. Hatch ended up giving up seven runs on just four hits in 5 1/3 innings.
• Junior shortstop Sheldon Neuse, the Sooners’ leading hitter with a .377 season average, joined Cody Thomas, each with two of Oklahoma’s six total hits in the game. Neuse also drove in two runs and scored twice.
• Three of OU’s six hits in Friday’s win over Oklahoma State were for extra bases (a double and a home run by Cody Thomas and a double by freshman left fielder Steele Walker).