oklahoma baseball: Sooners salvage a game, but lose series at Kansas

Oklahoma baseball lost a series at Kansas, but lost no ground in doing so.

The Sooners (34-21, 14-10) entered it final series of the regular season hoping to gain ground and possibly slip by Texas Tech into third place in the Big 12 standings. Instead, OU spun its wheels, losing two of three games to a Kansas team that is going nowhere this season and barely made it into the eight-team field for next week’s Big 12 Baseball Championship.

As it turned out, it didn’t really matter what Oklahoma did in the Kansas series. The Sooners couldn’t have caught Texas Tech even if they had swept the Jayhawks because the Red Raiders completed a three-game road sweep over second-place Oklahoma State.

After losing the first two games in the Kansas series by identical 6-5 scores, Oklahoma finally produced enough runs to put the Jayhawks away in the series and regular-season finale on Saturday.

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The Sooners rode the long ball, launching four home runs and pounding out 12 hits, to a 14-6 win and salvaged the final game in the series.

Eight of OU’s nine starters produced at least one hit in the game and all nine reached base. The Sooners fell behind early, yielding a first-inning run to Kansas, but responded with a pair of runs in the second before blowing the game wide open with a seven-run third inning.

The seven runs in the second inning was the most scored in one inning by the Sooners since tallying that same number in a March 24 game with West Virginia.

Junior third baseman Brylie Ware wielded the big bat in Saturday’s game, going three for five at the plate, including a three-run home run, and drove in six runs, tying his career high.

Sophomore Nathan Wiles was the winning pitcher on Saturday, improving his record to 6-3. The right-handed starter went a full seven innings, allowing six earned runs on five hits and striking out six.

Here are some of the other numbers that mattered from the OU baseball series at Kansas:

4 – Oklahoma’s four home runs on Saturday were its most in a single game this series.

5 – Oklahoma lost the series opener at Kansas 6-5 in 10 innings. The Sooners are 3-5 this season in extra-inning games, with all five losses coming on the road.

8 – The Sooners clubbed eight home runs in the Kansas series, their most in a three-game series since hitting seven a year ago against Kansas State.

14 – Oklahoma’s 14-run output in Saturday’s series finale at Kansas was the 14th time this season the Sooners have scored 10 or more runs in a game.

14-5 – Oklahoma scored five runs in two of the losses this weekend at Kansas. The Sooners are 14-5 this season when scoring five or more runs.

18-4 – The Sooners score three runs in the first inning in game two at Kansas, but failed to hold on in a 6-5 loss. OU is 18-4 this season when scoring first.

28 – OU pitchers combined for 14 strikeouts in the Sooners’ 6-5 loss in the series opener on Thursday. It marked the 28th time this season that the OU pitching staff has recorded 10 or more strikeouts in a game.

56 – OU leadoff hitter Cade Harris drew a walk in the Sooners’ game one loss. It was his 56th of the season, 5th most all-time in one season in program history.