Oklahoma baseball: Five things about Sooner baseball heading into Big 12 season opener

Oklahoma baseball opens the Big 12 portion of its 2023 schedule, hosting 11th-ranked TCU for three games this weekend at L. Dale Mitchell Park.

The Sooners enter Big 12 play with an overall record of 11-6 and winners of nine of their last 11 games and a 6-3 record at home. TCU, the defending Big 12 regular-season champions, is 9-7 overall this season. The Horned Frogs ended February with a 5-3 record but are just 4-4 in the month of March.

Oklahoma leads the overall series with TCU 64-42 and is 33-17 against the Horned Frogs in games played in Norman. TCU has won 19 of the last 26 games in the series, however, dating back to 2014. The Sooners won the final two games of the three games at TCU last season, but prior to that, the Horned Frogs had won seven in a row.

Five things to know about OU baseball as the Sooners open Big 12 play

• Oklahoma is batting .297 as a team, third best in the Big 12, averages 7.3 runs per game and has a pitching staff ERA of 4.37, fifth best in the conference. The Sooners’ opponent this weekend, TCU, is hitting .271 as a team, averages 6.0 runs and Horned Frog pitchers have an ERA of 4.47.
• OU freshman catcher Easton Carmichael is hitting a team-best .422 through 17 games, which ranks No. 3 in the Big 12. Carmichael was named Big 12 Newcomer of the Week this week.
• OU junior first baseman Anthony Mackenzie, a transfer from Sam Houston State, is batting .406 and leads the team with 19 runs scored and 13 stolen bases.
• Oklahoma finished tied for second in the Big 12 regular-season standings last year. The Sooners were the Big 12 Tournament champions last season and were national runners-up to Ole Miss in the College World Series a year ago.
• This is the 125th season of Oklahoma baseball. The first Sooner baseball team took the field in 1898.