Oklahoma baseball: Sooners get much-needed series sweep
By Chip Rouse
Things were looking very shaky for Oklahoma baseball after losing seven of the last nine Big 12 games.
That was after starting the conference season 8-0 and in first place, winning its first three Big 12 series.
After being swept last weekend by Oklahoma State in the Bedlam baseball series (the Lady Sooners, incidentally, returned the favor to the OSU Cowgirls in Bedlam softball this weekend), Oklahoma had dropped to 10-8 in Big 12 action and to fourth place in the league standings.
The Sooners got back on the winning track this weekend, taking all three games against Kansas State and outscoring the last-place Wildcats by a combined score of 18-3 on the heels of three strong pitching performances.
The series sweep over K-State earned the Sooners their third Big 12 series sweep this season. That is the most series sweeps by OU in conference play since 2004.
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Oklahoma, now 76-17 against Kansas State in Norman, improved to 13-8 in the conference and 31-18 overall. Even better, the Sooners moved ahead of Texas Tech, which lost twice to Texas over the weekend, into third place in the Big 12 standings.
Junior right-handed starter Jake Irvin got the Sooners off on the right foot in Friday’s series opener, holding Kansas State to just two hits and striking out 10 six innings of work. Meanwhile the Sooner offense produced 12 runs on 12 hits off of five Wildcat pitchers on the way to a 12-0 shutout.
Freshman left-hander Levi Prater made his first career start on Saturday and pitched 4 1/3 innings of hitless baseball. Kansas State managed just three hits the rest of the way, as OU registered it second consecutive shutout, 2-0. It was the Sooners’ sixth shutout of the season.
Down 2-0 after six innings in Sunday’s series finale and the final home game of the season, Oklahoma rallied for a pair of runs in the seventh and eight innings, and that proved to be enough to produce a 4-3 victory and complete the series sweep.
The Sooners finish out the regular season with three games next weekend at Kansas, which sits one spot ahead of Kansas State, in eighth place, with a 5-13 Big 12 record. Another good outing at Kansas could advance OU as high as second place in the league standings, which would earn the Sooners a No. 2 seed in the Big 12 Championship tournament the following week.
Here are some of the numbers that mattered from OU’s series with Kansas State:
3-3 – Center fielder Kyler Murray went three-for-three in Saturday’s 2-0 OU win. The three hits matched his single-game career high.
8 – Oklahoma has won eight of its last nine games against Kansas State.
13 – Oklahoma’s 12-run explosion in game one against Kansas State was the 10th time this season the Sooners have scored 10 or more runs in a game.
17-1 – The Sooners are 17-1 this season when holding teams to two or fewer runs.
17-3 – The Sooners scored a single run in the first inning of Friday’s game. They are 17-3 in 2018 when they score in the opening inning.
24 – With 12 strikeouts by OU pitchers in game one, the Sooners have 24 games in the 2018 season with 10-plus strikeouts.
200 – Junior Steele Walker recorded the 200th hit in his OU career with a double in the first inning of Friday’s 12-0 victory.
2009 – The last time an Oklahoma baseball team posted back-to-back shutouts over a Big 12 opponent before this weekend.