Bedlam is coming
The Oklahoma Sooners and Oklahoma State Cowboys will play a three-game Bedlam series with one game at ONEOK Field in Tulsa and two at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City.
Maybe Oklahoma State can still see the postseason from here.
Maybe not, at 24-21 overall and 6-11 in the Big 12.
Soon enough, however, OSU’s fate will finally crystallize. The Cowboys host Baylor this weekend and engage No. 24-ranked Oklahoma in Bedlam next week, ahead of the Big 12 Tournament. The Bears and Sooners are firmly projected for the NCAA Tournament, as No. 2 seeds, and represent an opportunity for quality series wins — and series wins are mandatory for the Pokes. The conference tournament offers more chances at a final appeal to be included in the field of 64.
Yet is such a run realistic for a club battered by injuries?
The Cowboys have won but two of six Big 12 series and dropped five of their last six.
Their redeeming value: a combined six résumébuilder wins over No. 4 Texas Tech, No. 18 Arkansas, No. 24 OU and No. 25 Nebraska, along with a few others over projected tournament teams.
“You’ve just got to keep looking at it as if we get on a little stretch here, we can make this happen,” said OSU pitcher Joe Lienhard.
The Cowboys will press on to the end; coach Josh
Holliday gets that from his clubs. Besides, many of the young players forced into filling significant roles are staking claims on future jobs.
“What we’ve asked them to do — and I think they’ve done a good job of it — is come back for more every day and strive to get better as a team, knowing that our ultimate journey is to get the most out of each player,” Holliday said.
“In the short term, sometimes it’s hard to be OK with that, because you want immediate results. This is what this is, it’s an immediate season — it’s now.
“But we’re also on a journey with each kid to reach their potential, which is something that’s kind of a lifetime, if you will, of working at the game and working with your mind and working with your body.”
Holliday knows how that sounds. And he knows this isn’t the follow-up anyone envisioned for a program that made the College World Series a year ago.
Still, Holliday said the big picture always rules.
“As much as that may not hold water to some, that is indeed what we’re going through,” he said. “You’ve got to ride that out and you’ve got to believe in it, if that’s truly what your building yourself on.”
Sooners sense high-stakes weekend
Oklahoma baseball coach Pete Hughes is blunt about the importance of this weekend’s home series against Big 12-leading TCU.
“We’re trying to host a regional,” Hughes said. Hosting gives us such a huge advantage . ... We are so close to getting that, and that’s what this weekend means to us.”
The Sooners’ place in the 64-team NCAA Tournament was in doubt in late April after OU dropped seven consecutive games. But since then, Oklahoma has won five of seven, including back-to-back road series.
The Sooners have been good against the toughest teams in the league they’ve faced, going 2-1 against Texas Tech and West Virginia. They also went 2-1 against No. 8-ranked Long Beach State to start the season.
Harris’ move paying off
Among the reasons for Oklahoma’s recent surge has been the move of Cade
Harris to left field. Harris was the Sooners’ primary starting third baseman last year as a freshman, yet with
Flansburg Jack
entrenched there this year, playing time had been hard to come by for the sophomore.
Harris had started just seven games this season — three at third, two at shortstop and two at designated hitter — before moving into left field April 23.
“Sometimes you get a guy in there that hasn’t been playing, and he’s good enough to play,” Hughes said. “When he gets in, he’s privileged and he plays at a different speed. That’s what he’s doing.”
Harris has upped his average to .224 since moving into top third of the lineup. And just as importantly, he’s drawing walks (12 in the last seven games) and forcing pitchers to work deep into counts.