Oklahoma baseball: OU pitching among nation’s best creating strikeouts
By Chip Rouse
Oklahoma baseball won four of five games last week, improving its 2020 overall record to 13-4 and is doing it by combining a productive offense with solid pitching and stellar defense.
Sooner pitchers have struck out 210 batters in 152.0 innings this season, an average of 12.4 per nine innings, which ranks third in the nation among Division I teams. Junior right-hander Cade Cavalli is leads the Sooners with 37 strikeouts in 23.2 innings and is one of four OU starters with at least 28 punch outs. Cavalli struck out nine in a seven-inning start against San Diego State this past weekend.
Oklahoma’s 4.67 strikeout-to-walk ratio is the fourth best in the country.
When you can get hitters to swing and miss with high frequency, it keeps runners off base and takes pressure off of the defense. Although OU pitchers don’t have any trouble allowing the defenders behind them to make plays. The Sooners’ .985 fielding percentage ranks ninth in the nation. OU has made just nine errors in 17 games.
Junior center fielder Tanner Tredaway and freshman third baseman Peyton Graham have wielded the big bats in the Sooner lineup so far this season.
Tredaway, the OU lead-off hitter, collected nine hits in last week’s games. He leads the Sooners with a .400 batting average, and his 28 hits is the second best in college baseball. His nine triples is tied for the national lead and his 51 total bases is third best on the country.
Graham is only a freshman but bats cleanup (fourth) in the OU lineup. In last week’s games alone, he hit .500, with six extra-base hits, four runs batted in and nine runs scored. He also walked five times, compiling a .600 on-base percentage, and scored the winning run in the series-clinching win over San Diego State on Sunday.
For his outstanding offensive performance last week, Graham was named the Big 12 Player of the Week.
For the season, the freshman third baseman is hitting .359 with a .625 on-base percentage and a .455 slugging percentage. His eight doubles ranks eighth in the nation.
Oklahoma closer Jason Ruffcorn earned his first win of the season on Sunday, retiring all six batters he faced in the ninth and 10th innings in a 9-8 Sooner win.
The Sooners will travel to San Luis Obispo, California, to take on Cal Poly in a four-game series this weekend before opening Big 12 play at home the following weekend against Red River rival Texas.