The Sooners' recent skid continued Sunday in their series finale against TCU, as the club fell to the Horned Frogs, 7-3, to finalize a series sweep at home. The loss marks the team's seventh in eight games.
Redshirt sophomore Braden Carmichael toed the rubber Sunday and stayed out of trouble throughout the majority of his outing. The left-hander held TCU scoreless through three innings and all three runs he allowed in the fourth inning were unearned after a costly error by Tanner Tredaway in centerfield. It wasn't until the seventh inning when Carmichael surrendered his first two earned runs.
OU lead, 3-0, early in the ballgame, thanks to redshirt senior second baseman Conor McKenna's sac fly in the second and redshirt junior first baseman Tyler Hardman's two-run home run in the third. But with the game knotted up at three apiece throughout the middle innings, OU failed to do much more than put a runner or two on base here and there.
TCU, who rung up 11 runs Friday and 17 runs Saturday, struck for four in the seventh to take a commanding 7-3 lead that OU could never respond to offensively. A scoreless final two innings from redshirt senior right-hander Jason Ruffcorn would go without a decision in the stat column.
Hardman eclipsed the 100 at-bat mark on Saturday and still has a batting average hovering just under .470. He hit his seventh home run of the season on Sunday and became the fifth Big 12 hitter to reach the 30 RBI mark.While the team's ERA sits worst in the Big 12, its overall team batting average still ranks among the best in the league.
A date with Oral Roberts (12-15) on Tuesday is up next for the Sooners (13-14), with a home conference series against Kansas April 9-11 looming.
