Oklahoma Softball Hosts Tarleton State on Tuesday in DH @ Love's

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Softball team will host Tarleton State for a rare Tuesday doubleheader at 4:30 and 6:30 PM at Love's Field. It looks like the weather will be in the low 70's or high 60's for the first game before cooling off a bit for the second game with a wind from the South-SW. The Sooners come into the game with a 22-1 record while Tarleton State arrives from Stephenville, TX with a 12-13 record.

Tarleton State was 11-7 for the season until they lost 6 of their last 7 games to reach the 12-13 record they now have. They have a couple of good players and a couple more decent players in the field. As a team, they have the 'mini-stairstep' averages with a .282 BA, .360 OB% and a .434 Slug%. Kelci Hill (CF) has a .470 BA with a .723 Slug% with 9 doubles, 3 triples and 2 HRs. Kayla Wallace (LF) has a .365 BA, .460 OB% and .635 Slug% with 9 doubles, 1 triple and 3 HRs. Katy Schaefer (3B) hits .311 with a .405 OB% and a .649 Slug% with 5 doubles and 5 HRs. Tristyn Trull (SS) adds a .390 average with a .380 OB% and a .435 Slug%. rounds out those top 4 players. All of them are veteran players. Tarleton State scores 4.64 runs per game.

The do play some defense as they only have 16 errors, which is not that bad for their level of play, and a .977 Field%. But their errors do congregate at 2B, SS and 3B. Somehow they have allowed 52 stolen bases so far in the season.

Their pitching staff has trouble picking up strikeouts as they have only 81 Ks in 158.0 Innings. They also allow 297 hits, walks and HB in those same innings. When you allow 1.9 base runners a game and only strike out 0.51 batters per inning you are going to have some problems in the circle. They have also allowed 52 EBH in those innings. Their team ERA is 5.14. Their best pitchers might be a Redshirt-Freshman, Kendal Daniel, who has a 3.67 ERA and 2 CGs. Three other veterans have ERAs between 4.46 and 5.33. Two more have over a 7.50 ERA. I think we may see all six of the pitchers in the two games on Tuesday. Tarleton State allows 5.62 Runs/7 IP.

As for the Oklahoma Sooners, as a team they have the 'major-stairstep' averages with a .388 BA, .473 OB% and a .705 Slug%. The Sooners are averaging 8.39 runs per game and 10.97 Runs/7 IP. They are also averaging 4 EBH per game as of this week and 1.91 HRs per game with 44 dingers. The Team ERA is 1.32 and the Sooners are fielding at a .988 clip with 7 errors.

The games on Tuesday should be over fairly quickly and Oklahoma should pad their stats a bit in the DHer.

I think that we will see Karlie Keeney start in the circle in one game and maybe SJ Geurin start in the other game for her first career start. With six pitchers on the staff, the Sooners could go 3-1-1 innings in each game and send all six of them to the circle. Deal and Monticelli could pitch the 4th innings with Maxwell and May finishing in the5th innings if the Sooners want to do that. If the games are extended, both Monticelli and Deal could extend and inning or two.

I am growing very comfortable with the two freshman, Kasidi Pickering and Ella Parker playing important roles with this team. While I think Jayda Coleman is the ultimate leadoff hitter, I am comfortable with Pickering leading off as she packs more than just some pop and can extend counts when needed. Parker looks good hitting 5th also as a very fast power hitter who hits for a high average. While I thought both would be very good, they could very well exceed my first year predictions for them. I estimated that they would hit as shown below:

Parker - 0.355 BA, 0.448 OB% and 0.673 Slug% - Actuals right now are .440 BA, .532 OB% and .820 Slug%.
Pickering - 0.343 BA, 0.435 OB% and 0.616 Slug%. - Actuals right now are .456 BA, .515 OB% and .702 Slug%.

Both have been very good in the first third of the season and seem to have one starting roles without a doubt as of now. I suspect that when Coleman settles in, she will return to leadoff and Pickering will drop down in the lineup.

Good luck to the Sooners on Tuesday.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the Tarleton State DH on Tuesday night starting at 4:30 PM. The games will be televised on ESPN+.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/3/11 ... eton-state

[AustinTXSooner]

Hitting comparison:

#	Player	BA	OBP	SLG	AB	HR	RBI	OPS
1	Sanders, Cydney	.385	.579	1.051	39	8	20	1.630
33	Brito, Alyssa	.438	.507	.906	64	7	22	1.413
5	Parker, Ella	.440	.532	.820	50	5	21	1.352
23	Jennings, Tiare	.400	.461	.815	65	7	25	1.276
7	Pickering, Kasidi	.456	.515	.702	57	3	17	1.217
9	Hansen, Kinzie	.356	.426	.712	59	6	15	1.138
24	Coleman, Jayda	.410	.494	.639	61	3	17	1.133
0	Boone, Rylie	.421	.476	.596	57	1	12	1.072
30	Ludlam, Riley	.387	.444	.613	31	2	12	1.057
12	Bland, Maya	.250	.500	.500	4		1	1.000
40	Torres, Alynah	.341	.426	.488	41	1	8	.914
43	Lilio, Quincee	.182	.357	.545	11	1	3	.902
82	Hodge, Avery	.261	.333	.435	23		4	.768
27	Coor, Hannah	.133	.235	.133	15		1	.368

Tarleton State:

#	Player	BA	OBP	SLG	AB	HR	RBI	OPS
30	Hill, Kelci	.470	.500	.723	83	2	20	1.223
21	Wallace, Kayla	.365	.460	.635	74	3	18	1.095
9	Rowland, Brady	.423	.515	.577	26	1	8	1.092
27	Schaefer, Katy	.311	.405	.639	61	5	26	1.044
25	Gibson, Kiana	.333	.407	.542	24	1	1	.949
2	Trull, Tristyn	.290	.380	.435	69	1	10	.815
0	Germain, Austin	.273	.351	.379	66	1	6	.730
24	Cox, Makayla	.286	.375	.286	7			.661
11	Dickerson, Jordan	.229	.325	.271	70	1	4	.596
47	Hill, Kalyn	.177	.221	.242	62		4	.463
23	LaRue, Ashlee	.121	.224	.190	58	1	5	.414
3	Fox, Hayden	.160	.185	.160	25		3	.345
42	Hernandez, Bella	.143	.143	.143	7			.286
12	Songer, Avery	.000	.143	.000	6			.143
10	Reed, Hannah	.000	.100	.000	9			.100
8	Cochran, Molly	.000	.000	.000	1			.000

[AustinTXSooner]

Pitching Comparison

There's no one number in pitching that accurately reflects how effective a pitcher can be. These are sorted by ERA, but you could arguably sort them by WHIP (Walks+Hits per inning pitched) or OPS allowed instead.

K/BB shows a blend between control and power. K/IP is power. WHIP is the ability to keep runners off base. It and OBP are really measuring the same thing just in slightly different ways. I included OBP so that I could easily compute OPS.

#	Player	App	GS	ERA	IP	BB	SO	HR	GO	FO	W	L	SV	K/BB	K/IP	WHIP	OBP	SLG	OPS
85	Geurin, SJ	5		0.00	6.7	3	6		8	6	2			2.0	0.90	0.60	.167	.048	.214
17	Monticelli, Paytn	9	1	0.60	11.7	5	17	1	4	13				3.4	1.46	1.11	.277	.225	.502
11	Deal, Kierston	7	6	0.85	24.7	6	29		18	26	5			4.8	1.18	1.01	.253	.189	.441
8	Keeney, Karlie	11	2	1.35	26.0	7	13	3	38	20	2	1	1	1.9	0.50	1.15	.286	.323	.609
28	Maxwell, Kelly	12	6	1.70	37.0	13	39	4	38	27	6		1	3.0	1.05	1.05	.273	.315	.588
19	May, Nicole	9	8	1.75	32.0	14	39	3	25	29	7			2.8	1.22	1.19	.288	.287	.575

Tarleton State

#	Player	App	GS	ERA	IP	BB	SO	HR	GO	FO	W	L	SV	K/BB	K/IP	WHIP	OBP	SLG	OPS
6	Daniel, Kendall	12	5	3.67	34.3	17	14	1	43	38	2	2		0.8	0.41	1.69	.384	.382	.766
22	Dunbar, Makenzie	10		4.46	26.7	8	11	2	25	38	2	3	1	1.4	0.41	1.46	.348	.410	.758
17	Blincoe, Hannah	11	9	4.99	40.7	21	25	2	48	46	4	2		1.2	0.61	1.75	.376	.383	.759
44	Rehmeier, Alexa	11	9	5.33	42.0	32	24	2	43	53	3	2		0.8	0.57	2.10	.421	.384	.805
4	Marquez, Kynlee	7	2	7.68	13.7	12	7	2	16	14	1	4		0.6	0.51	2.63	.493	.516	1.009
15	Riney, Gracie	1		52.50	0.7	1		2	1	1				0.0	0.00	7.50	.714	1.833	2.548

[TropicalSooner]

Thank you so much for doing these AustinTXSooner. Really excellent information and I know how labor intensive these charts can be.
Appreciate your efforts.

[OUBeliever56A]

AustinTXSooner-

Something I have been using for 1 indication for pitchers two steps.
1. Adding Total Bases allowed + walks + HB allowed / Innings Pitched for a base figure.
2. Then I subtract tbe pitchers K's /IP from the base figure.

If the result is close to 1.0 or lower the pitcher is very good.

It works fairly well.

[SoonerGirl1201]

Cyd Sanders is on fire!!!!!! You go girl. Fresh off of being the national softball player of the week, she has proceeded to hit a 3 run in the first game and a 3 run homer in the second game.

[TropicalSooner]

Also really nice to see Hannah Coor finally get a start and unleash the bat we knew she had.
Way to go Hannah!

[TropicalSooner]

Just a couple of quick observations about the Tarleton State games.

Pitching
I liked the way Maxwell settled in and has started showing some of the "Ace" we knew was there. There were zero free bases. She was very efficient--only throwing 61 pitches to 16 batters---averages out to less than 4 pitches to each batter and 7 of those batters were struck out over 5 innings. I think she's now shook off the transfer thing and is playing lights out like a true Sooner.
The best part about all that was that our offense was totally asleep from the 2nd inning until the 5th--but she didn't flinch. Just kept on doing her thing until the offense woke up.

Second game--May and Keeney teamed up pretty well. May is May. And Keeney will just pound the zone at you. They only gave up 2 EBH-doubles, 1 each, and only Keeney's cost a run. Again, 7 Ks between the two of them and No Walks.

I think our rotation is probably going to look something like Maxwell game one, May game two and Deal for game three going forward, depending on the lefty/righty matchups from opposing teams. I had thought we might have seen Monti and Keeney in starting roles for the two Tarleton games but obviously Coach wanted a last minute tune up for Max and May.

Offense
Didn't like the way the offense fell asleep in the first game. It was Tarleton State. C'mon. Finally broke out in the 5th, but my gosh, we should have been having a field day against this team.
Loved the continuation of the home runs by Sanders. Awesome.
Also loved to see Coor get a start and then crush one over the 225 ft CF wall herself. We all knew it was in there somewhere.

Don't get me wrong---we got two run-rules, and I like run-rules--they're wins. But I think we had opportunity lost in the first game, but maybe it will all work out for the upcoming trip to Lubbock.

[oufanforever]

The first game was weird in that the offense came out hot, Coleman had 1st pitch HR to start the game. Then in the 5th they decided it is time to finish and just pounded the ball. I have no idea if they lost focus for the middle innings or what. May's 1st inning issue is real now. I read some where out of her 8 ER given up, 7 were in the first inning of the game. No idea what is the fix for it. Could be when she is exploring the strike zone some pitch just left fat?

[TropicalSooner]

The first game was weird in that the offense came out hot, Coleman had 1st pitch HR to start the game. Then in the 5th they decided it is time to finish and just pounded the ball. I have no idea if they lost focus for the middle innings or what. May's 1st inning issue is real now. I read some where out of her 8 ER given up, 7 were in the first inning of the game. No idea what is the fix for it. Could be when she is exploring the strike zone some pitch just left fat?

I've thought something similar for a long time. Seems to me like 1st few batters she is exploring the strike zone---trying to see what the ump will let her get away with and where it is that he will call strikes and she winds up leaving something too fat over the plate during that process.
Have no idea if that's the case or not. Just seems like it to me, because it appears to me like when she figures all that out....then she's nails.