Oklahoma drops Bedlam regular-season finale 7-3 in Tulsa

Oklahoma baseball concluded the Bedlam regular-season series on Tuesday night at ONEOK Field in Tulsa with the rubber match against No. 21 Oklahoma State after the two in-state rivals split the first four games throughout the year.

Unfortunately for the Sooners, the midweek pitching issues continued with a cavalry of Oklahoma pitchers struggling. Skip Johnson was forced to employ nine (!) pitchers to navigate the evening and record the 27 outs. Certainly, very far from ideal.

The Cowboys would strike right away in the opening inning drawing four walks, three off of starting pitcher Dalton Fowler and one off of Ben Abram, to take a quick 1-0 lead. Oklahoma would get that run back in the bottom of the second on a ball thrown away by Oklahoma State third baseman Christian Encarnacion-Strand on a bunt single by Sooners shortstop Brandon Zaragoza. The game would remain knotted up at 1-1 through three frames.

The fourth inning proved an ugly one for Oklahoma. It allow the Cowboys to strike for four runs on two hits. Command was an issue for Sooners pitching with numerous walks and hit batters. Oklahoma State took a 5-1 lead into the sixth.

There, the Pokes added two onto their lead with knocks from right fielder Cade Cabbiness and designated hitter Justin Campbell.

Oklahoma State made the interesting decision to have shortstop Hueston Morrill take the hill and pitch the eighth. It mostly worked out. He served up a home run to third baseman Peyton Graham and allowed a couple of walks, but limited the damage to just a run.

The Sooners tried to create one final push in the ninth, scoring a two-out run on an RBI single by left fielder Kendall Pettis, but that was all. They fell 7-3.

The loss was another display of Oklahoma’s struggles midweek. With the thin starting rotation, beating good teams without their normal weekend rotation arms has been very difficult.

At this point, the Sooners’ hopes to climb into an at-large NCAA Tournament bid are very slim. The focus now is really largely to button things up and hope to get hot at the right time at the Big 12 Tournament to try and receive an automatic qualification by winning it, which is going to be an obviously very difficult challenge.

Oklahoma (24-23) will take a couple of days away from game action before their final home series of the year, against Texas Tech, which opens Friday night at L. Dale Mitchell Park.