Tulsa is coming off of a 2-1 series win over East Carolina on F, S, S as they outscored the Pirates 14-8. In their midweek game last weekend, Tulsa almost defeated OSU as they lost 2-3 to the Cowgirls. Earlier this year, Tulsa did defeat OSU 3-0. Tulsa also won 2 of 3 games from Wichita State a couple of weekends ago. Tulsa is 27-14 overall and 12-6 in conference. But in their last 23 games, Tulsa has a good record of 16-7.
Oklahoma is coming of a two weekend stretch where they have they are 4-3 and have scored 33 runs in those 7 games. The Sooner pitching has allowed 18 runs in those 7 games. The Sooners are 38-4 overall and leads the Big 12 with a 15-3 record. It has been awhile since the Sooners swept a 3-game series with Kansas and outscored them 30-4 three weekends ago.
Tulsa on offense is similar to BYU. Yeah, that surprised me as well. Here is the stat lines for both teams:
- Tulsa - .325 BA, .389 OB% and .490 Slug% with 5.54 Runs/Game, 63 steals in 72 attempts and 71 doubles, 19 triples and 25 HRs.
- BYU - .326 BA, .415 OB% and .501 Slug% with a 6.68 Runs/Game, 45 steals in 52 attempts and 57 doubles, 4 triples and 42 HRs.
In the circle, Tulsa is better than many teams with an ERA of 3.07. (There stat sheet says 3.95 but it is calculated on 9 innings not 7 innings as it should be.) The top 3 pitchers for Tulsa have a combined ERA of 2.90. They allow less than a hit an inning also. The three pitchers, Nash (2.25 ERA), Moore (3.04) and Anderson (3.32) are able to pitch pretty well. Moore and Anderson start mostly while Nash usually relieves. I would say that their pitchers are easily better than BYU. But without knowing anything about any of them, who knows for sure except for looking at the stats.
I hope Oklahoma can get some stronger offense going than they had this last week. Against Wichita State and BYU, the offense in three of the games was almost there. In the other game it was not as OU scored 4 runs. In a different phase of offense OU has left 8.5 runners on base in that stretch as well. In those 4 games, the Sooners have averaged 9 hits and 8.25 walks/HB in the 4 games. With 17 baserunners per game I wish the split was more like 13 and 4 rather than 9 and 8. Walks help to start an inning or to keep an inning going, but hits do the work required to score runs, IMO.
The offensive stats have dipped since the Kansas Series. Here are those two sets of stats.
- After Kansas: 34-1 W/L - .394 BA, .495 OB%, .733 Slug%, 9.2 Runs/Game, 63 doubles, 3 triples, 78 HRs, 41 steals.
- Today: 38-4 W/L - .379 BA, .483 OB%, .692 OB%. 8.45 Runs/Game, 74 doubles, 3 triples, 85 HRs, 48 steals.
On defense, the Sooners have held their level of good defense during this stretch of 7 games as they still have a .985 Fielding% despite making 3 errors in 7 games which is a bit higher than normal.
I do not have a worry that the Sooners will win the game against Tulsa if they play (hit, defense and pitch) well on Tuesday. It would be very nice to see the three parts of the game line up with all three playing well on Tuesday.
Good luck to the Sooners on Tuesday night in front of about 5500 fans in OKC.
Boomer Sooner!
