Week 12 OU Baseball Report: Another turnaround required from Sooners
The Skinny
The good news, if you can call it that, is Oklahoma has been here before.
In fact, the Sooners have been here before, only worse, because this time, the slump is only a week. They’re coming off a loss to Oral Roberts, which may haunt them a bit when regional assignments come up, and two of three losses at Georgia, and even though they managed to score 20 runs at Georgia, their best hitters fell into deep holes.
Jackson Willits, more on him below, didn’t get a hit the whole week and, in Athens, Trey Gambill, Easton Carmichael and Sam Christiansen combined to go 6 for 37 at the plate, with Gambill netting one RBI and Christiansen scoring one run. But for three walks drawn by Gambill and another three by Christiansen (of course), that was it.
It’s great when the bottom of the order contributes, but the Sooners need to get their best bats going if they’re to climb the spots required to get back into regional-hosting consideration.
Even entering last week, ranked 13th by the coaches, bracketologists did not see OU as a potential host. More on that below, too.
Texas, which swept Texas A&M over the weekend thanks to three one-run victories, is OU’s last SEC opponent this regular season, and the games are in Norman, giving the Sooners the chance to make an end-of-regular-season statement no matter how the next two weekends ago.
But those opponents are tough, too, and the first one is Ole Miss, visiting Norman for a three-game series beginning Friday.
The Rebels (31-13, 12-9) entered last week ranked 18th and will be moving up after taking two of three from 10th-ranked Vanderbilt.
Kentucky, who the Sooners meet in Lexington the following weekend, are plenty good, too. Though unranked entering last weekend, the Wildcats took two of three from South Carolina and are just one game back of OU in the SEC standings.
The last time the Sooners had to break out and do something, they won a Bedlam game, swept Missouri and scored a ton of runs.
Now they must do it again.
The Schedule
Last week
— lost to Oral Roberts 5-3
— def. Georgia 8-6
— lost to Georgia 10-9
— lost to Georgia 6-3
This week
— vs. Wichita State, 6 p.m. Tuesday
— vs. Ole Miss, 6:30 p.m. Friday
— vs. Ole Miss, 4 p.m. Saturday
— vs. Ole Miss, 2 p.m. Sunday
Record: 30-13 (11-10 SEC)
Streak: Lost 2
Team numbers
Entering last week
Games: 39
Batting avg: .296
On-base pct: .410
Slugging pct: .491
Home runs: 50
Triples: 13
Doubles: 73
Stolen bases: 96
Caught stealing: 19
ERA: 4.26
SO/IP: 391/334
Fielding pct: .971
Errors: 39
Unearned runs allowed: 28
Entering this week
Games: 43
Batting avg: .290
On-base pct: .406
Slugging pct: .477
Home runs: 52
Triples: 14
Doubles: 81
Stolen bases: 97
Caught stealing: 21
ERA: 4.40
SO/IP: 428/368
Fielding pct: .973
Errors: 41
Unearned runs allowed: 33
Individual leaders
Batting average: Trey Gambill .319, Jaxon Willits .315
On-base pct: Trey Gambill .503, Sam Christiansen .478
Slugging pct: Easton Carmichael .563, Jaxon Willits .562
RBIs: Easton Carmichael 45, Jaxon Willits 39
Home runs: Easton Carmichael 10, Jaxon Willits 9
Triples: Jaxon Willits 3, Easton Carmichael 3
Doubles: Jason Walk 11, Kyle Branch 8, Dawson Willis 8
Hits: Easton Carmichael 54, Jaxon Willits 51
Runs: Jaxon Willits 49, Trey Gambill 41
Stolen bases: Dawson Willis 15, Jason Walk 14
ERA (minimum 20 innings): Dylan Crooks 1.59, Kyson Witherspoon 2.35
Wins: Kyson Witherspoon 8-2, Reid Hensley 3-1, Cade Crossland 3-3, Malachi Witherspoon 3-5
Innings pitched: Kyson Witherspoon 65, Malachi Witherspoon 53 1/3
Strikeouts: Kyson Witherspoon 92, Malachi Witherspoon 63
Inside the numbers
• Willits’ impossible week: OU shortstop Jaxon Willits continues to lead or be runner-up among Sooners in several categories even though many of his numbers did not change at all last week. That’s because after going 4 for 4 in the final game against Missouri, he went 0 for 14 in four games last week, thus his hit, home run, triple and double totals have not moved. Meanwhile, his previous slash line of .345/.435/.615 is now .315/.421/.562
• Art of the steal: Who are OU’s fastest baserunners? Well, if you watch the games, you’re likely to say Jason Walk and Dawson Willis. They lead the Sooners in steals and may well be the fastest. Still, between them, though they’ve swiped 29 bases, they’ve also been caught a collective 11 times, making them successful less than three fourths (29 of 40, 72.5 percent) of the time. Meanwhile, the rest of the team’s success rate is 88.6 percent (78 of 88). Jaxon Willits (12 of 12), Kyle Branch (12 of 12) and Sam Christiansen (8 of 8), if you can believe it, are at collective 100 percent.
• Outliers: Seven of the Sooners’ eight everyday players have struck out at least 23 times this season, five have struck out more than 30, two more than 40 and one 50. The one who’s yet to strike out 23 times, or even 20? Trey Gambill, at 19. The one at 50? Dawson Willis. Gambill’s strikeout rate is 16 percent. Willis’ is 33.1 percent. Because he’s collected more at bats, Kyle Branch strikeout rate is even lower than Gambill’s, at 14.3 percent. As for walks, two Sooner starters have reached at least 40 (Gambill 40, Christiansen 43) and two others (Branch 13, Willis 14) have yet to reach 15.
Notes of note
Middle relief middling at best
Cade Crossland may again be a question mark in OU’s starting pitching rotation after allowing seven earned runs (on only four hits!) over four innings in the middle game at Georgia last weekend.
Still, put that aside because the Sooners still have Kyson Witherspoon, who might be the nation’s best starter, and brother Malachi Witherspoon, who has been much better lately. And, if you haven’t noticed, closer Dylan Crooks remains very dependable.
The issue is getting the game from the starters to Crooks, and the most favored options of coach Skip Johnson have been Jason Bodin (21 appearances, 5.33 ERA), James Hitt (20 appearances, 3.20 ERA) and Reid Hensley (17 appearances, 3.38 ERA).
Hensley, though, has given up four hits, two walks and three runs over his last 2 1/3 innings. Hitt just gave up five hits and five runs (three earned) over two appearances against Georgia totaling one inning. Bodin, who’s had a high earned run average all season, pitched in all three games at Georgia, giving up nothing his first two appearances, totaling 1 1/3 innings, but a home run his very first pitch in relief of Hitt in the last game.
Might Johnson look beyond that trio for primary roles?
Watch the mid-week game
Tuesday, Wichita State visits L. Dale Mitchell Park and how Johnson uses his pitchers is bound to be interesting. Will it be another bullpen game where somewhere between 5 and 10 Sooners take the mound, a state of affairs amounting to a tryout for SEC games remaining?
Or, might Johnson offer somebody a real start, the chance to throw five-plus innings should the Shockers continue making outs? That wold be a tryout, too, but not for a bullpen role, because Crossland really is struggling.
His earned run average is 6.55 and 20 of the 45 hits he’s allowed have been for extra bases, including 11 home runs. He’s also walked 10 and hit five batters over his last four starts (19 2/3 innings).
Bracketology
OU must get busy to host a regional, much less a super regional.
Two of the most prominent NCAA baseball bracketology operations belong to D1Baseball.com and Baseball America, and though they won’t update until later in the week, where they had OU last week is still very telling.
OU entered last week ranked No. 13 by the coaches and in the top half of the SEC, and still they were not among the top 16 in either of the bracketologies. D1Baseball.com had the Sooners the No. 2 seed at the Morgantown Regional, which, given West Virginia’s projected 14th overall seed, makes OU the 19th overall seed. Baseball America had the Sooners the No. 2 seed in the Clemson regional, hosted by the No. 2 overall seed Tigers, which makes the Sooners the 31st overall seed, which seems ridiculous.
Given OU won just one of four games last week, it’s bound to fall in both brackets. And in a related matter, the Sooners have also fallen in the RPI from No. 19 to No. 23.
Until next time …