Oklahoma baseball: Sooners need to get things turned around
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma baseball is up to its neck in quicksand, and in danger of playing itself out of the NCAA Tournament.
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If this sounds strikingly familiar, it should. The Sooner men’s basketball team found itself in similar straits over the last month and a half of the college basketball season.
Oklahoma has lost seven of its last 10 baseball games, including going 2-7 in its last three Big 12 series.
At the end of March, the Sooners were 20-10 overall and off to a 6-0 start in the Big 12 after sweeping West Virginia and Baylor. In the month of April, however, the Sooners struggled to break even, registering eight wins and eight losses. Against Big 12 teams, though, they were just four up and eight down.
In mid-April, OU was ranked No. 11 in the Collegiate Baseball Top 25, but after being swept last weekend by conference leader Oklahoma State, the Sooners have fallen out of the top 25.
Fortunately, a remedy for the ailing Sooners may straight ahead. Oklahoma’s last two regular-season series are against the worst two teams in the conference. Last-place Kansas State comes to Norman this weekend, and the Sooners finish up the regular season with three games at Kansas next weekend.
K-State is 18-26 this season, but just 3-15 in the Big 12. Oklahoma is 40-18 against the Wildcats as members of the Big 12 and is 4-2 the last two times the teams have played in Norman.
On paper, the matchups with Kansas State weigh heavily with the Sooners. OU has scored almost 150 more runs than the Wildcats in all games and the Sooner staff ERA is close to 2.5 runs less than K-State pitching.
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A sweep of Kansas State, which would be Oklahoma’s third Big 12 series sweep this season, would be important for two reasons. Not only would it stop the bleeding from the Sooners recent losing string, but it, could move them ahead of either Texas or Texas Tech into third place in the conference standings, depending on the outcome of this weekend’s games.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Winning two out of three from the lowly Cats would be a step in the right direction, as well.
OU junior right fielder Steele Walker has been the big bat all season for the Sooners. His production so far this season, which includes a .364 batting average, third best in the Big 12, 11 home runs, 44 runs batted in, a .462 on-base percentage and .614 slugging percentage, has strengthened his stock for next month’s Major League Baseball Draft.
MLB.com projects Walker as a first-round pick. Their latest projection has the OU outfielder going to the Los Angeles Angels with the 17th overall selection in the opening round.
The weekend starting rotation of Jake Irvin (5-1, 3.33 ERA), Devon Perez (4-2, 4.53 ERA) and Nathan Wiles (4-3, 4.04 ERA) are expected on the mound in the series with K-State. All three were roughed up pretty badly in starts last weekend against Oklahoma State and are hoping for better performances this time around.