Oklahoma baseball finished up their final home series of the year on Sunday with the rubber match of their three game set with No. 7/8 Texas Tech.
Unfortunately for the Sooners, their pitching woes against the Red Raiders continued in a major way allowing 13 runs to come across the plate to help Texas Tech win the game on run-rule in just seven innings.
Luke Taggart (1-6) was given the start and he, like many other Oklahoma pitchers this weekend, had immense struggles allowing four earned runs and only working into the second inning. Carson Carter, Wyatt Olds and Jake Bennett would team up to finish the game after Taggart.
The Red Raiders were held scoreless by Taggart in the first inning but changed that quickly in the second striking for six runs on three home runs. The Sooners would get one of the runs back in the bottom of the third on an RBI hit from right fielder Jace Bohrofen to have the score sitting at 6-1 Texas Tech after three.
Tech would strike for five more runs in the fourth inning on two more long balls off of Carter. Olds would then allow a couple more runs to cross in the sixth to have the Red Raiders lead balloon out to 13-1.
Oklahoma would strike for a run in the bottom of the seventh with shortstop Brandon Zaragoza being hit by a pitch with the bases loaded, but weren’t able to add on any more to try and avoid the run-rule. The loss drops the Sooners back down to .500 at 25-25 on the season and 9-12 in conference play.
This series was always going to be an immense challenge for Skip Johnson’s club given what Texas Tech can do offensively as a true national title contender. All in all, Friday’s win was very important but it has to still be disappointing to have the last two games of the set be so lopsided.
Oklahoma will now hit the road for the final week of the season beginning a three-game series against Baylor in Waco starting on Thursday night.