Postseason upon us, where does Sooner pitching go from here?
Patty Gasso has decisions to make this week at SEC tourney, beyond
Once again, the way coach Patty Gasso chooses to employ her pitching staff this week should be fascinating.
Oklahoma could lose its SEC tourney opener Thursday morning at Georgia’s Jack Turner Stadium and that would be that until regional pairings are announced. Yet, as long as that doesn’t happen, we should learn some stuff and question No. 1 would be this:
Will Gasso sell out to win the conference tournament, as it’s likely the only way to earn the NCAA’s No. 1 overall seed, a state of affairs that could see her start Sam Landry in the circle for three straight days, just like the old days when softball coaches saw nothing wrong with running their best pitcher into the ground?
Or, would Gasso be more inclined to do what she’s done most of the conference season, throwing Landry in the opener, possibly using her in short relief should it be required in the semifinal, while being prepared to start her in Saturday’s championship tilt should the Sooners get there?
The NCAA’s own Ratings Percentage Index has Texas A&M, which finished a half game behind OU in the SEC standings, atop the list.
It also has Florida, which just beat OU twice, yet finished three full games back of the Sooners in the conference standings, at No.2 and if you can believe it, LSU, which finished .500 in the conference, at No. 4 … and only then the Sooners at No. 5.
A No. 1 national seed may not be everything, but it’s designed to give its designee the easiest possible path to the World Series and given OU’s inconsistency inside the circle and the apparent shallowness of its pitching staff, it may be worth selling out to grab.
Question No. 2 might be this:
What’s happened to Sooner pitching and is anybody, even Landry, trustworthy entering the postseason?
The short answers to that are who knows and no.
Landry just finished her most un-Landry-like weekend of the season.
It’s not like she was coming off terrific outings prior to facing the Gators, having allowed 15 hits and 10 earned runs (12 total) over her previous three appearances against Mississippi State and Texas.
But what she hadn’t done all season was absolutely struggle to find the plate as she did over two Gainesville starts, walking 11 Gators and plunking two others over 14 1/3 innings in which she allowed seven earned runs (11 total).
In fact, prior to facing Mississippi State on April 20, Landry had allowed three free passes only once — March 28 against Tennessee — in 22 previous appearances this season.
It’s not the kind of precursor you want entering the postseason and still Landry remains Gasso’s best option, highlighting OU’s pitching struggles.
There’s also this, which is not a question, but perhaps a worthwhile observation, because you know who wasn’t pitching very well entering the postseason last year?
Kelly Maxwell, that’s who.
In her last three 2024 regular season outings, Maxwell allowed two earned runs over 4 1/3 innings at Central Florida, three earned runs over four innings against Oklahoma State and three earned runs over just one inning against Oklahoma State.
She followed that, however, by posting a 1.84 earned run average over 49 1/3 postseason innings, or 1.35 if you subtract the least of the outings, a World Series start in which she allowed five runs to Florida despite throwing a four-hit complete-game victory.
Maybe Landry can do something like that because the Sooners badly need her, or somebody, to take charge.
Gasso, independent of what she chooses this week, may still have a Norman Regional to give several pitchers real work, but after that, she won’t.
After that, it could be Landry all the time or every elimination game, at least, even if she went the distance the day before, even if going the distance required going more than seven innings, as it did last Thursday at Florida.
What’s clear is this Sooner pitching staff is a long way away from 2023, when Alex Storako carried a 0.52 ERA, Jordy Bahl a 0.70 and Nicole May a 1.07 and everybody thought it was pretty normal.
It wasn’t.
There’s always Sooner Magic, as occurred in 2021, Giselle Juarez going from the No. 3 pitcher on her own team to the nation’s best in the space of a single postseason, one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen or covered.
But that’s unlikely.
OU is where it is.
Staring at question marks, hoping for answers.