Almost to Omaha, is there a team playing better baseball than the Sooners? Maybe not.
The plan was to write this one with certainty.
That is, the plan was to write this after the Sooners had already written their ticket to Omaha, which if you’re new to college baseball is the host city of the Men’s College World Series.
Well, they haven’t just yet, but they went to sleep Sunday night all but having done it because lightning struck and did not quit striking in time to come back to the diamond and finish what began Sunday evening before today.
So, instead of punching its ticket already, Oklahoma will be back in Kansas’ Hoglund Ballpark, where it leads the Jayhawks 8-1 in the bottom of the third inning, Dayton Tockey having just hit yet another home run and Kyle Branch at the plate, facing a 3-1 count with nobody on and nobody out and Jayhawk pitcher Boede Rahe likely still on the mound.
If it’s Rahe returning to face the Sooner bats at noon today, he’ll still be KU’s third pitcher of the game.
If he doesn’t, whoever does will be the fourth, and while it’s indeed an all-hands-on-deck situation for the Jayhawks, should they somehow rally and win, they’d still have to find the arms for one more go-round yet later today, as unlikely as that appears to be.
If you were here last week, you read about the miracle in Atlanta, the Sooner Magic that finally found its way to the big diamond, kind of the way it did four years ago, when OU last did what it’s trying to do now, earn a trip to the World Series without playing a postseason game in its own venue.
But while that trip was fueled by pitching and led by the great Cade Horton, Norman High’s own, the best pitcher in the National League post All-Star break last season, this one has been fueled by the Sooner offense, which scored 88 runs the first seven games of the season before coming out to play here and there since.
Until last week and this one.
