Oklahoma baseball: Pitching has been Sooners’ downfall this season

It’s been an up-and-down season for the Oklahoma baseball team.

You win some, you lose some is a good way to describe what the Sooners’ performance 39 games into the 2021 college baseball season. While OU has not been at its best on the diamond this spring, there have been some things to stand up and cheer about.

The Oklahoma record stands 20 up and 19 down heading into a three-game Bedlam showdown against in-state rival Oklahoma State this weekend.  The two teams will play a game Friday night in Stillwater, and then the series shifts to Norman for games on Saturday and Sunday at L. Dale Mitchell Park.

Oklahoma State owns a 24-12-1 record overall, but the Cowboys are just 7-8 in the Big 12 and tied with Baylor in fourth place in the conference standings, a game back of third-place Texas Tech. Oklahoma currently sits in eighth place in the standings with a record of 4-8.

The Sooners and Cowboys played an earlier game on March 30 that does not count in the Big 12 standings. The game was played in Stillwater and Oklahoma State won 5-4, with a walk-off, run-scoring single in the bottom of the ninth.

The two rivals will meet again one more time this week, with a midweek game on May 11 in Tulsa.

Oklahoma and Oklahoma State have met 303 times on the baseball diamond. OSU leads the series 160-142. The Sooners have not won in Stillwater since 2014.

Oklahoma is coming off of a home three-game series last weekend against Georgia Southern, out of the Sun Belt Conference, in which the Sooners salvaged the final game to avoid being swept. Prior to that, the Sooner lost two out of three at Kansas State, against a Wildcat squad that came into the series with OU with a 2-7 record against Big 12 opponents.

The Sooners are averaging six runs a game against Big 12 opponents this season. The problem is, the pitching staff is allowing seven runs and 11 hits per game, and nearly a third of those hits have been for extra bases, including 19 that have cleared the fence. On the season, Oklahoma has given up a league-worst 44 home runs overall.

OU pitchers have a staff ERA of 5.46 through all games, worst in the Big 12, and opponents are batting ,259 against the Sooners, second worst in the league. Those numbers are even higher against Big 12 teams. The Sooner staff ERA is 6.04 in Big 12 games only and conference teams are averaging .296 at the plate against OU pitching.

OK, enough with the glass-half-empty approach. There also have been some positive performances to cheer about, which helps balance the scale and speaks to why the Sooners are hovering around the .500 mark overall.

• Earlier in the season, Oklahoma knocked off Arkansas, the No. 1 team in the land, by an 8-5 score, and the game was at Arkansas.
• Despite OU’s 4-8 conference record, the Sooners beat Big 12 leader Texas in Austin this season.
• Oklahoma has outscored opponents in the last two-thirds of games this season (innings four through nine) by a combined score of 183-133.
• Sooner junior first baseman Tyler Hardman leads the country in hits with 67. He ranks third nationally in total bases (111), fifth in batting average (.432) and eighth in on-base percentage (.524).
• Freshman third baseman Peyton Graham has reached base on 35 consecutive games.
• There are even some positives to report among the pitching staff. Sophomore starting pitcher Wyatt Olds has posted a 2.76 ERA over his last three outings with 19 strikeouts in 16.1 innings.

There is still plenty of time to get things turned around with 14 games remaining in the regular season, all against Big 12 teams. After the Oklahoma State series, the Sooners have a home series against Texas Tech followed by road series at West Virginia and Baylor