Campbell Shines On The Mound As The Cowboys Secure A Series Victory
We have been waiting for a game like this from Oklahoma State freshman Justin Campbell, you could feel it coming.
Campbell has been excelling at the plate the past few weeks, but today he owned the pitching mound. The 6’7” right hander helped lead the Cowboys to a 6-1 win that featured some patchy offensive play.
Campbell was a fantastic pitcher in the high school ranks, where he went 8-2 with a 1.17 ERA.
Coming into this game Campbell had three starts on the mound, where he was not at his best as he faced Grand Canyon, UT Rio Grande Valley, and Illinois. His season ERA entering today was a tick above 7, not exactly ideal for the freshman.
Well, tonight, Justin Campbell settled in and looked like a true Friday night starter, going 8 strong innings with 9 strikeouts, 0 walks, and allowing only 3 hits, all of which are career bests. After this performance, Campbell’s ERA is now lowered to 4.43 on the season.
"He sure did do a good job tonight.", said head coach Josh Holliday. "He threw his curveball for strikes repeatedly, changeup effectively, fastball got better as the game went on, and he threw some sliders and you could see his personality come out around the 5th, he started to take that thing over.
"With the game of baseball, you always have to progress.", Campbell said postgame. "No matter how good or bad of a player you are, the game is a game of failure, you've just got to keep competing and see where the game takes you."
Campbell told us that he thought they would tell him the 7th was his last inning because of pitch count but that he walked up to Rob Walton and told him, "I'm going back out there, I feel good."
He ended the game with 106 pitches and said he felt good enough to go more but Walton insisted the 8th was his last inning. "I wanted to go out there but it was the right thing to do, conference play is only two weeks away, no need for something bad to happen,", Campbell said.
On the offensive side of the ball, the Cowboys generated one run in the bottom of the 1st inning and then added two insurance runs in the 3rd on a Caeden Trenkle homerun. It would be four innings until another Cowboy crossed the plate, when 3 runs were collected on a Nick DeNicola 3 run home-run, his first hit of the season.
The lone run for the Cougars was scored in the 9th inning after loading the bases on RHP John Kelly.
Something interesting to note is that Campbell is a true 2-way player, an extremely tall task at the collegiate level. His bat showed up immediately for the Cowboys, which can be seen by his .400 batting average so far this season.
It is not surprising to see the arm to take a little longer for Campbell, juggling two jobs for a nationally ranked Oklahoma State team. However, now that the arm has come around, it will be very interesting to see how Josh Holliday and Rob Walton use Campbell and how often he is seen both at the plate and the mound.
I think it is very likely that we see him used the same way as his UT Rio Grande Valley start, where he pitched and hit for himself, going 2-4 at the plate.
I asked Justin if he felt comfortable playing both ways in the same game and he was very quick to answer, "Absolutely, it's beautiful, bring it on, I love hitting for myself."
Campbell is playing his way into one of the strongest pieces of this Cowboy baseball team, the role Josh Holliday recruited him to fill.
With Big 12 play only two weeks away and Campbell finding his groove at the right time, it is highly likely that he has cemented himself into that #2 spot in the rotation behind Parker Scott.
