OU Baseball: Oklahoma Loses to Baylor in Series Rubber Match
A tough series loss on the road.
After evening their three-game series with Baylor on Friday night, Oklahoma concluded the set on Saturday afternoon at Baylor Ballpark in Waco.
The Sooners (17-16, 3-6) fell into an early hole that would prove to be too much to overcome, as the Bears (12-20, 4-8) took the matchup and series with a 5-3 win in the rubber match.
Getting the start on the mound for OU was right-hander Will Carsten, and he would run into some early trouble in this one.
In the first, Baylor struck for two quick runs to snag an early 2-0 lead.
After Rocco Garza-Gongora got one of those runs back for the Sooners in the second, the Bears struck for three more runs in the third to chase Carsten from the game and make it a 5-1 BU advantage.
That would remain the score all the way into the sixth inning, thanks in large part to the exploits of OU left-handed pitcher Braden Carmichael.
Less than a week after his stellar effort against Oral Roberts on Tuesday, Carmichael tossed 5.2 shutout innings out of the pen to keep the Sooners in the game.
Oklahoma inched closer with a single run on solo shots in both the sixth and seventh innings, courtesy of Easton Carmichael and Anthony Mackenzie.
But, unfortunately for OU, the back end of the Baylor bullpen was able to shut down the rally and preserve the 5-3 Bears win.
The defeat is certainly a disappointing loss as the Sooners are now just 1-5 in their last six conference games after taking two of three games from TCU in March.
With a little time off to recuperate, Oklahoma will now turn their attention to a midweek tilt with Wichita State on Tuesday night at L. Dale Mitchell Park in Norman.