Oklahoma baseball: Sooners add big arm for 2023 pitching staff
By Chip Rouse
With seven pitchers from the 2022 Oklahoma baseball roster taken in the recent MLB Draft, are faced with a major overhaul of the pitching staff for next season.
The Sooners got some good news on that front on Sunday night with the announcement that Virginia transfer Blake Bales would be joining the OU roster for next season as a graduate transfer.
Used exclusively out of the bullpen, Bales was one of the top relief pitchers in the country in the 2021 college baseball season. He was named a Second-Team All-American in 2021 by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and was a finalist that season for the NCBWA Stopper of the Year Award.
In 25 relief appearances, the 6-foot, 4-inch right-hander allowed just two earned runs to score and just six of his 23 inherited baserunners to score. He ended the 2021 campaign with a highly impressive 0.71 ERA and 54 strikeouts in 38.0 inning pitched.
Among the Sooner pitchers drafted in the 2022 MLB Draft were close Trevin Michael and relievers Chazz Martinez, Jaret Godman and Javier Ramos.. The latter three may elect to come back for another college seasson, but Michael was a fifth-year senior this season and willl likely sign an MLB contract.
All three weekend starters for Oklahoma, Jake Bennett, David Sandlin and Cade Horton also were drafted, leaving the Sooners’ starting rotation completely decimated.
Oklahoma was the national runner-up this past season, losing to Ole Miss in the 2022 Men’s College World Series championship series. Eleven Sooners were drafted in the recently completed MLB Draft, the most of any college teasm.