Sooners looking to gain momentum from Bedlam game
NORMAN — Coming off being swept in a threegame series at TCU, Oklahoma needs some positive momentum.
“With this team, we have to get better every day,” Sooners coach Pete Hughes said. “We lost three opportunities to get better as a team last weekend, so I don’t care who we’re playing (Wednesday) night. We have to get better and get back to playing Sooner baseball, which we didn’t do this weekend.
“We got out-competed, out-toughed and out-executed — every phase of it up and down the line.”
It’s not just another opponent Oklahoma has at 6 p.m. Wednesday, though. The Sooners will host Bedlam rival Oklahoma State.
The game was originally scheduled for Tuesday but was pushed back a day due to expected rain in the area Tuesday night. With both the Sooners (18-18-1) and Cowboys (22-13) at home this weekend, it made it easy to push the game back a day.
It’s important for Oklahoma to get out to a good start, Sooners shortstop and closer Sheldon Neuse said, but not just for recovery from last weekend’s series where OU was outscored 25-5 in three losses.
It’s also important for the Sooners because of the way the Cowboys blasted OU 24-2 in the teams’ non-conference game a season ago.
That set the tone for Oklahoma State’s series win a few weeks later and a win in the Big 12 Tournament.
“It’s huge,” Neuse said. “To go out and send a message the first time we play to let them know that we’re not a team that’s going to lay down even though we’re coming off a rough weekend, we’re not a team that they’re just going to be able to walk over. I think we go out and we send a message early, I think it kind of puts something in our mind the next time we play them.”
While the Sooners are just .500, they had won seven of nine going into the series in Fort Worth and have been much better in midweek games this season compared to last year.
A season ago, Oklahoma went 2-5 in one-off non-conference midweek games that weren’t part of a bigger event.
This season, the Sooners are 6-1 so far.
“You have to have that depth on the mound because you can’t keep running the same guys out there that you are on the weekend,” Hughes said. “If it’s the other way around, you better be super, super offensive to win a bunch of midweek games. I don’t think we’re that. I think for the first time we have a lot of depth and we’ve run a lot of guys out there in the midweek.”
While the Sooners haven’t been a great hitting team this season, they’ve scored a combined 27 runs over the last two midweek games — wins over Dallas Baptist and Wichita State.
Freshman Jake Irvin has made both those starts and left with an 11-2 lead in one of those games and a 14-0 lead in the other.
“It’s helped a lot with confidence,” Irvin said. “It’s shown me that you don’t have to strike everybody out at this level. I know coming in from high school, you’re used to being able to get all those strikeouts but now you can pitch to contact and you can get wins and get out of innings that way.”