Why 'One Day at a Time, One Pitch at a Time' Actually Works for Oklahoma

Ou coach Skip Johnson learned under Texas legend Augie Garrido how to stay focused on the moment, but somehow he's gotten his players to buy into it as well.

OMAHA — It’s probably the most reviled coachspeak in sports history.

“One game at a time.”

Everybody says it. Not everybody really means it. And almost nobody can actually pull it off.

But somehow, Oklahoma’s baseball team has bought into coach Skip Johnson’s multi-pronged mantra.

One pitch at a time. One at-bat at a time. One inning at a time. One game at a time. One series at a time.

“One pitch at a time is really what the game's played like,” Johnson said. “You can only control your thoughts — your one thought on one pitch. You don't want to look in the future; you don't want to look in the past.”

That buy-in has put the Sooners in the College World Series, where they play No. 5 national seed Texas A&M on Friday at 1 p.m.

“It's easier said than done,” Johnson said.

Cade Horton throws under Skip Johnson's watchful eye

Skip Johnson wants his players focused on "one pitch at a time."

Much of Skip Johnson's approach was learned under the late Augie Garrido.

Baseball is rich with a hundred years of cliches, but “one game at a time” or “one pitch at a time” are among the oldest, tiredest and least believable.

But since starting the season 12-7 and 18-12, OU — now 42-22 — has made the cliche work in their favor.

“I think personally,” said center fielder Tanner Tredaway, “and I think I can speak for the whole team, is it just really keeps us in the moment.”

It’s Zen thing, and Johnson believes in the Zen of baseball. Once a protegee of the Zen master himself — Texas’ Augie Garrido — Johnson is always on the hunt for things that can calm a player’s mind. In baseball, even keel trumps emotional peaks and valleys.

Johnson, a pitching coach by trade when he got to Texas from Navarro Junior College, applied it first to his pitchers at Texas while working alongside Tom Harmon under Garrido.

“Really thought what I knew what I was doing,” Johnson said. “I really didn't know what I was doing as a baseball coach. And being around Coach Garrido and Coach Harmon in that and listening to what they talked about — one pitch at a time — I learned a lot how to teach guys in that environment. It's really just about one pitch.”

Maybe the most pronounced example of how Oklahoma has bounced back from a low by focusing on the now came when the Sooners put forth their worst effort of the season on a Monday — an inexplicable 18-0 loss at Wichita State exactly one month ago — and then turned in a stunning victory on a Thursday — 13-8 at Texas Tech.

Losing didn’t bother the team. Losing big didn’t bother them. They just came back the next game and turned their attention to the Red Raiders and took care of their business.

“I think it's really just trickled down to the whole team, and it's just been really good for us,” Tredaway said. “And we played in a lot of hostile environments — and this one's going to be the same. And I think that's why we've thrived in those situations.”

Another example came when OU won the opening game of the Bedlam series, then gave up five runs in the final three innings to lose game two, a gut-punch loss. Game three was a 9-4 OSU stroll.

But the Sooners gathered themselves, went to Amarillo two days later and beat up on Texas Tech 14-9.

Oklahoma’s steady vision was also apparent down the stretch of the regular season and has been prominent throughout the postseason.

After that Bedlam loss, OU didn’t drop another series the rest of the year. They swept Kansas, then pounded K-State twice before stumbling in game three.

That shocking loss might have lingered, especially when the Sooners opened the series at TCU with a disappointing 9-7 setback.

But OU won the next two to win the TCU series, then took two of three against West Virginia.

They won the first two games at Tech, then — with the regular-season Big 12 championship on the line — dropped game three.

Instead of moping about an opportunity lost, the Sooners swept through the Big 12 Tournament for the first time since 2013.

There have been setbacks. And they were almost always answered with fortitude.

“It's really just about one pitch,” Johnson said. “This game's hard enough to play. It's an imperfect game.”