Sooners struggle in Big 12 tourney opener
Oklahoma fell to Baylor 4-0 to open the Big 12 Tournament Wednesday morning at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.
By 9:02 Wednesday morning, Oklahoma was in big trouble.
The Sooners got off to a rough start in the opener of the Big 12 Tournament and could never recover, eventually falling 4-0 to Baylor at Bricktown Ballpark.
On the first pitch of the game, Bears’ leadoff hitter Nick Loftin hit a hard grounder at shortstop Brandon Zaragoza, typically one of the best fielders in the league.
But Zaragoza kicked it, putting Loftin at first.
Two pitches later, starting pitcher Jake Irvin’s pickoff throw went wild for the second error.
The Bears pushed across two unearned runs in the first and with ace Cody Bradford on the mound, that was plenty.
“Baseball is not meant to be played at 9 a.m.” Irvin said. “At 9:01 (actually 9:02) we make an error — first pitch of the game. That’s kinda how those 9 a.m. games go. You have to battle through those things. Once I settled in, it was a lot easier to make quality pitches.”
The Sooners (34-22) will have to figure out a way to be alert earlier. They’ll face Texas at 9 a.m. Thursday in an elimination game.
Oklahoma has lost four consecutive Big 12 Tournament games dating back to 2016.
Nathan Wiles is expected to start for the Sooners on Thursday.
Bradford (7-5) pitched into the eighth inning and struck out 11 as Oklahoma managed just four hits.
But it’s not like the Sooners didn’t have chances.
They put two on with one out in the third and fourth and couldn’t push a run across in either.
In the eighth, Cade Harris delivered a oneout double and Kyler Murray drew a two-out walk after Steve Rodriguez went to his bullpen.
“Those are things you have to do to that guy — try to establish him throwing the ball in the middle of the strike zone,” Sooners coach Skip Johnson said of his team’s approach against Bradford. “He didn’t today. Hat’s off to him.”
Irvin, the Sooners’ ace, needed 59 pitches to get through the first two innings.
Though he settled down after that, he couldn’t make it into the sixth after throwing 105 pitches.
“Being able to get out there, get pitch counts up — and we emphasize just putting the ball in play with two strikes, forcing things to happen and just not striking out, making sure that defense plays defense,” Rodriguez said.
“I think we’ve done a pretty good job of that all year, just being able to put the pressure on them early and kind of wake everybody up. All the sudden they woke up, we woke up and pretty soon we realize we’re in a dog fight.”
Oklahoma’s wake up call came too late, though.
“Today they might’ve been a little antsy, trying too hard to set the tone,” Johnson said. “They’ll settle in tomorrow.”