Pitching is (almost) everything
Both Patty Gasso's and Skip Johnson's Sooners are living it right now
Watching Cade Crossland pitch in Lexington, Kentucky, on Saturday was much like a root canal.
Painful.
The first batter he faced, Tyler Bell, struck out on three pitches, which hardly ever happens.
The 0-2 pitch, a dying changeup as it reached the plate, was a thing of beauty.
Bell couldn’t lay off and it could not have been a better sign for the southpaw Sooner starter.
The next Wildcat batter, Luke Lawrence, a lefty, appeared to have taken a perfect two-strike fastball from Crossland on the outside black. Instead, the umpire called it a ball and Lawrence eventually walked.
Next, facing Cole Hage, Crossland appeared to throw two more perfect two-strike pitches. Again, he did not get the call and Hage walked, too.
Crossland then plunked James McCoy despite being up 1-2 in the count, thus loading the bases, and he was done.
It began so well.
But a couple things went against him and Crossland came undone.
Despite remaining into the fourth inning, he never recovered.
Four runs crossed in that fateful bottom of the first (after the Sooners plated two in the top half) and another in the second.
Crossland survived the third despite a Ryan Schwarz triple and after opening the fourth with a four-pitch walk to Devin Burkes, Sooner coach Skip Johnson came and got him, allowing the first two arms out of the Oklahoma bullpen, belonging to Gavyn Jones and Reid Hensley, to suffer similar fates.
The Sooners fell 8-5.
Just the day before at the SEC tournament, though coach Patty Gasso’s OU softball team eventually claimed an 8-6 victory via a three-run bottom-of-the-seventh walk-off home run from Gabbie Garcia, because that’s just the kind of thing Gasso’s squad does from time to time, the Sooners would have otherwise lost because, trying to both rest ace Sam Landry and bolster the staff around her, Gasso kept going to the pen in search of deliverance and failing until her third choice, Audrey Lowry, finally entered to settle the game.
Both contests were fantastic examples of what ails each team the most.
For Johnson’s squad, it’s a failure to get all three starters going at the same time, followed by consistent inconsistency from his middle relievers.
For Gasso’s, it’s been and remains the difficulty she’s faced building a staff around Landry, for no additional pitcher, let alone two, have yet earned extended confidence.
The bright side for Gasso’s quest is, though Lowry had previously been lost, allowing nine hits and nine earned runs over two appearances totaling just a third of an inning against Mississippi State and Texas, she’s since responded with three straight appearances against Florida and Arkansas totaling five innings in which she’s allowed three hits and no runs, striking out four and walking nobody.
Indeed, Friday, it was so bad for OU as long as Kirston Deal, Isabella Smith and Paytn Monticelli were in the circle, consecutive outs were recorded only twice until Lowry showed up in the fifth inning, inheriting a baserunner from Monticelli.
Deal, Smith and Monticelli also combined to allow eight hits, six runs and walk six batters, five times going 3-0 on Razorback hitters, twice dealing four-pitch walks and one other time throwing four straight balls after getting a first-pitch strike.
Yet, just like that, Lowry retired all nine batters she faced, which was probably more important to OU than coming back to win the game, the need for pitching beyond Landry so urgent.
As for Johnson’s mound staff, it frustrates.
In relief of Crossland, Gavyn Jones walked one and plunked two, eventually allowing three earned runs without allowing a hit, which is extremely hard to do.
In relief of Jones, Reid Hensley promptly allowed a bases-clearing double of the runners Jones put aboard and, before being relieved by Jaden Barfield, walked a batter, the 11th of 12 Wildcats to reach base without benefit of a hit, a state of affairs that will lose just about any game played on any diamond.
It was Johnson’s bullpen B-team in relief on Saturday, James Hitt and Jason Bodin having tossed three scoreless innings in Thursday’s 4-3 loss to the Wildcats, so there’s that, but those guys are bound to be needed come the postseason, not to mention Crossland, and walking and hitting batters is a great way to dash regional, super regional and College World Series dreams.
Stipulated, it’s not like diamond skirmishes can’t be won 11-7, 13-9, 9-8 and 16-12, but nobody plans for it and everybody who’s counted on it, with the possible exception of a couple LSU baseball teams before they reined in the bats, has failed.
It’s no way to win.
Rule No. 1 remains.
You’ve got to throw strikes.
Still, pitching’s (almost) everything.