Oklahoma baseball drops series, looking for answers

That’s not how that was supposed to go for Oklahoma baseball. 

Two weeks ago, Oklahoma had its sights set on hosting a regional in Norman. Then the Sooners no-showed in Lexington, getting swept by the Wildcats. 

On Saturday, Oklahoma dropped its regular season finale to Texas 9-1, losing the series to the Longhorns who broke a 1-1 tie in the seventh inning with a trio of runs before a two-hour weather delay. 

The Sooners head into next week’s SEC Tournament in Hoover, Ala., having lost six of their last seven games. Oklahoma had more errors (3) than hits on the afternoon (2) in the final regular season game this season at L. Dale Mitchell Ballpark. Eight of Texas’ nine runs came with two outs. 

“I think that’s the biggest deal, just simple plays. You’re going to make physical errors. You can’t make mental errors. Some of them are mental and physical – a combination of both. I think that’s the compound effect. All of the sudden a guy goes out there and makes an error then he’s trying really hard to get a hit cause he made an error,” said Oklahoma head coach Skip Johnson. 

Witherspoon good, Harrison better

Stop me if you’ve heard this before. Malachi Witherspoon pitched his tail off in the Saturday rubber game, before running into trouble in the game-changing, series-shifting seventh. 

Witherspoon scattered four hits over 6.1 innings, allowing four runs, striking out 10 and walking three. 

He worked in and out of jams throughout the afternoon. Texas loaded the bases with no outs following a Jason Walk error in the second. Witherspoon proceeded to strikeout Tommy Farmer IV and induce an inning-ending double play ball to second. 

After Rylan Galvan opened the scoring with an RBI single in the third, Witherspoon retired the next 10 batters he faced. 

“I thought every pitch he was throwing was really good until he got to about 100 pitches. When he hits a guy he started trying to pitch out of a jam and he came really close to pitching out of it,” said Johnson. 

But despite Witherspoon’s efforts, Texas’ starter Luke Harrison was better. Albeit his defense was much better. The junior left-hander held Oklahoma to just two hits on Saturday. Easton Carmichael’s fourth inning solo home run, the lone bright spot for an offense that has turned anemic. 

“If we play defense it’s a totally different game. A totally different game,” Johnson said. “We’re probably still playing right now. It’s as much as defense as offense as anything else. We should have had better quality at-bats. I thought Malachi was incredible. 

“That’s what is going to happen offensively when you play a really good team. You’re going to go up and down but you have to find ways to take your free bases, figure out how to move them over, figure out how to get them in. You can’t just try to line up and outslug anybody. That’s just not the game. We struggled offensively.” 

Seventh inning game-changer

It’s almost hard to believe Saturday’s rubber game entered the seventh inning tied 1-1. 

Witherspoon began the inning at 87 pitches. He was in control. Then he plunked Kimble Scheussler with a 1-2 pitch. Tommy Farmer IV followed with an infield single and they each moved into scoring position following a wild pitch. 

Casey Borba broke the tie with a fielder’s choice ground ball to third. Though he wasn’t charged with an error, the ground ball to Dawson Willis is a play that needs to be made on the runner going home. 

Gavyn Jones relieved Witherspoon and struck out Max Belyeu before hitting Rylan Galvan with a 1-1 pitch. 

Adrian Rodriguez beat out an infield single to second before weather arrived forcing a two hour weather delay. Texas’ three runs in the seventh came without a ball leaving the infield.

Texas poured it on after the delay

The Longhorns scored five more runs after the 120-minute intermission. 

Casey Borba hit a towering two run home run to left in the eighth. Kimble Scheussler tagged a three run shot in the same direction in the ninth. 

But it’s the little things that Oklahoma doesn’t do well enough 

And that’s why Oklahoma (33-19, 14-16) finds itself in the position they do heading into next week’s SEC Tournament. The Sooners will be the 12-seed in Hoover and open its first run through the postseason on Tuesday vs. No. 13-seed Kentucky. First pitch is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. 

And for Skip Johnson there’s hope the postseason will come with a fresh start. 

“You’re 0-0 now. That season is over with. What are we going to do moving forward? I didn’t know if I should have blown them up but I did anyway. So it made me feel better. At least I can feel better when I go home than they do,” said Johnson.