No. 8 OU baseball (19-6, 4-3 SEC) fell to No. 2 Texas (21-4, 5-2 SEC) 14-0 by mercy rule in Austin on Thursday.
OU is now 1-2 in series openers during conference play, with their lone victory coming against No. 25 Texas A&M (19-5, 2-4 SEC) 8-7 on March 13th. Their game one losses have come at the hands of LSU (17-9, 2-4 SEC), 7-1, and now Texas. Notably, the Sooners won both series against the Aggies and Tigers 2-1.
Here are three takeaways from the series opener:
OU's pitching struggles
OU struggled to find consistency from the mound throughout the game, using six different pitchers, with UNLV junior transfer LJ Mercurius taking a majority of the pitches.
Mercurius threw 63 total pitches, throwing 35 strikes while giving up 10 hits, seven runs and three walks. In total, the Sooners' bullpen gave up 17 hits, 14 runs and seven walks while only accumulating five total strikeouts.
The Sooners failed to negate the Longhorns' dominance at the plate with their lack of fielding consistency across the six innings.
Sooners' lack of scoring
The Sooners were held scoreless for only the second time this season, which resulted in their biggest loss of the season.
OU tallied six total hits on 26 at-bats in the game, failing to find consistency anywhere in the rotation. The Sooners struck out a total of eight times before the game was ended by mercy rule.
Early struggles turn into runaway loss
Thursday’s contest became out of reach for OU early, and the Sooners were never able to recover. The Longhorns scored four runs in the first inning and built momentum from a double play where a potential double by senior outfielder Trey Gambill was wiped out by excellent fielding by Texas.
Texas scored in every inning except the second and the sixth, with its second inning scoring hopes put on hold by a grounded double play by the Sooners with the bases loaded for their cleanest inning of the night defensively. In the sixth inning, Sooners sophomore pitcher Jaden Barfield delivered a key strikeout backed by sharp fielding from the infield and outfield to hold Texas to its second scoreless inning of the game.
All hopes of a late comeback were put to rest after junior infielder Camden Johnson struck out with the bases loaded in the top of the fifth inning, allowing Texas to keep the Sooners out of the scoring column and impose a mercy rule.
Next, the Sooners look to make up ground in game two of the series against the Longhorns at 7 p.m. Friday at UFCU Disch–Falk Field on SEC Network.
This story was edited by Josh Franklin.
