Oklahoma baseball: Takeaways from a bad OU loss in NCAA Regional

Oklahoma baseball was the next to last team to make it into the 2023 NCAA Baseball Tournament, and the way they played in 14-3 loss to East Carolina in the Charlottesville Regional was a patent example of why.

The champions of the American Athletic Conference pounded the Sooners like a heavyweight taking on a lightweight, and as a result Oklahoma has to quickly put the loss behind them and turnaround and play a morning elimination game against No. 4 regional seed Army. The Black Knights suffered a similar fate against regional host Virginia in Friday’s opening round, losing 15-1.

East Carolina scored in bunches early, putting up multiple runs in the third through sixth innings. At the end of six, the Pirates led 10-0 and were well on their way to an opening-game win. The Sooners scored all five of their runs over the final four innings.

Braden Carmichael, who has been the ace of the OU pitching staff over the last month, was hit hard right from the start. The left-hander was knocked out of the game after 2.2 innings, giving up four runs on four hits, striking out three but walking five. The Sooner bullpen didn’t fare much better against an East Carolina lineup that lit up OU pitching for 15 hits, six of them for extra bases.

Key takeaways from the East Carolina blowout

• About the only bright spot for the Sooners was the way they ended the game, scoring one run in the sixth, two in the seventh and two more in the ninth after being shut out on three hits through the first five innings.
• The middle of the Oklahoma lineup — Dakota Harris, Anthony Mackenzie and Easton Carmichael — had two hits apiece and accounted for six of the Sooners’ nine hits in the game.
• Sooner starting pitcher Braden Carmichael suffered his first loss of the season after seven straight wins.
• OU head coach Skip Johnson after the game: “We picked a bad day to play bad. Hats off to ECU. We’ve got to show up tomorrow and play.”