Sooners right ship, wait for Bulldogs
It’s not like Oklahoma entered the NCAA’s Norman Regional playing poorly because it’s hard to play poorly when you’re hitting .390 as a team. Nonetheless, the Sooners were a simmering mess.
Coach Patty Gasso had been making no sense with her pitching selections.
The Sooners dropped their opener at Texas A&M, though eked out the next two, stubbornly claiming the SEC’s regular-season championship. Only then did they play the game they appeared hurtling toward, a 10-5 elimination loss to Georgia upon arriving at the SEC tournament.
Now?
Now they’re great, or so it would appear, or something very, very close to it, after three straight victories on their home field that have them waiting for Mississippi State’s noon Friday arrival.
OU shut out Binghamton 11-0 in five innings, then Kansas 9-0 in five innings, then Michigan 8-1 in seven.
From having no pitchers they could hang their hat on, the Sooners now have two and others they can sprinkle in when needed.
They’ve righted the ship.
Dramatically.
Leaving the SEC tourney, Gasso said they’d head back to Norman and “really press … throughout the entire practice, to the point of exhaustion, and you should keep asking for more and more and more until your hands bleed.”
It’s enough to make one wonder if Gasso, mad softball genius she is, somehow orchestrated her squad’s tourney downfall just for the whiplash the turnaround would create. What wasn’t dramatic, though, were the games themselves against the Bearcats, Jayhwaks, and Wolverines.
In three days, Sooner bats forced two mercy rules, scored 28 runs, collected 27 hits, drew 15 walks and bashed seven home runs. At the same time, Sooner pitching tossed 17 innings, allowed one run, six hits, struck out 13 and walked one.
You’d like a few more strikeouts maybe, but one walk?
Hard to beat yourself doing that.
Going a little deeper, here are four notes to better understand this team as it enters super regional play.
It’s the Lowry, Guachino show
Leading into regional play it was as though Gasso made the decision to get further and further away from Audry Lowry, who’d been the Sooners’ best and busiest pitcher through the regular season.
What now appears true is Gasso was happy to sacrifice short-term success while trying as hard as she could to elevate Miali Guachino alongside Lowry, hoping to make them a one-two World Series punch. That’s just what they were last weekend, Lowry the apparent first among equals.
She drew two of the three starts, including the last one, against Michigan, in which she threw 4 2/3 innings, allowing one run two days after starting and throwing two shutout innings at Binghamton. In between, Guachino shut out Kansas in a five-inning run-rule, allowing one hit.
A method to the madness.
Pickering busts slump, not Wells
No need to worry about Kasidi Pickering any longer.
Not only is she out of her very long slump, she’s out of it in a very Kasidi Pickering kind of way, finishing the Norman Regional 3 for 6 with two home runs and four RBIs, also drawing three walks.
She’s now hitting .382, yet the headline is her .510 on-base percentage, created by drawing 38 walks, most on the team save Kendall Wells’ 40, because so many opponents won’t pitch to Wells, afraid she’ll take them deep.
Wells, though, is in a slump of her own.
Once sitting on 36 home runs 51 games into the season, she’s now at 37 after 59, having hit just one over her last eight games. Over her last 11 games, she’s gone 4 of 25 (.100) at the plate, though 13 walks have kept her on-base percentage (.447) high over the span.
Perhaps Mississippi State, coached by former Sooner Samantha Ricketts, will go after her from the circle. That could be fun.
Minor doing major damage
Because I can’t not say it, imagine the season Kai Minor might be having if she’d take a few pitches. Because right now her on-base percentage of .479 is only 33 points higher than her batting average of .446.
The reason, of course, is Minor has drawn just 11 walks all season.
Still, her season is off the charts.
There’s the batting average, 11 home runs, a .797 slugging percentage and 45 RBIs from the leadoff spot.
She’s Rickey Henderson from the left side and she led her team last weekend, going 5 for 11 at the plate with a home run, two doubles, four RBIs and six runs scored.
Faircloth a worthy opponent
Remember Jennifer Stewart, the pitching hero from OU’s 2000 national championship team, when the Sooners won it all wearing shorts?
She came on in relief of Lana Moran in the opener and never came out, pitching the Sooners to their first national championship in their first World Series appearance.
Well, that was Faircloth’s story leading Mississippi State to victory at the Eugene (Oregon) Regional, where she pitched 15 2/3 innings, allowed no runs, two hits, walked six and struck out 26.
In the Bulldogs’ middle game, against Oregon on the Ducks’ home field, Faircloth finished a walk short of a perfect game, tossing a no-hitter.
Faircloth’s earned run average is down to 2.28 over 169 innings in which she’s struck out 261 and walked 57. Her staff mate, Peja Goold, continues to carry the lower ERA — 2.12 over 148 1/3 innings — yet Faircloth’s time appears to be now.
The Sooners must get to her to reach the World Series.