No. 16 Alabama baseball will head to Norman on Thursday for another big test against No. 11 Oklahoma.
The Crimson Tide struggled on the road in Lexington, getting swept to start SEC play, but is 6-0 at The Joe in conference play.
“It’s on the road, and the one thing that SEC has shown us in the early season, three weeks in, is winning on the roads tough,” head coach Rob Vaughn said. “We went out there and didn’t play great in Kentucky and played really good at home for six games.”
This will be the Crimson Tide’s first trip to Norman since the Sooners joined the SEC. The last time it played Oklahoma in Norman was 2018, when the Sooners took two out of three games.
The Crimson Tide faced the Sooners last year at The Joe and took two out of three games, winning the series. Thus far this year, the Sooners are 20-8 and 4-5 in SEC play and coming off getting swept by No. 2 Texas, which the Crimson Tide will face in Austin later on this season.
Pitching matchups
UNLV transfer LJ Mercurius will get the start for the Sooners on Thursday night. He is coming off his worst start of the season, getting tagged for seven runs in just two innings of work against the Longhorns. Mercurius still has great numbers with a 3.53 ERA, 1.18 WHIP, .221 batting average against, and 49 strikeouts in 35.2 innings pitched.
Mercurius will be tasked with facing Crimson Tide ace Tyler Fay, who has given up just one hit over his last two starts in 14 innings pitched with 18 punchouts in that stretch.
Friday night will be the battle of the lefties between Cameron Johnson for the Sooners and Zane Adams for the Crimson Tide. Johnson has been nothing short of spectacular thus far for the Sooners, boasting a 2.70 ERA, 1.37 WHIP, .178 opponents’ batting average, and 44 strikeouts in 30 innings pitched.
Freshman, 6-foot-6-inch left-hander Cord Rager will take the mound in the series finale Saturday for the Sooners. In seven starts, Rager has a 4.80 ERA, 1.10 WHIP, .194 opponents’ batting average, and 35 punchouts in 30 innings pitched.
Rager will be tasked with going toe to toe with fellow freshman Myles Upchurch, who is coming off an extremely gritty start against then No. 5 Auburn, where he navigated around seven free passes to hold the Tigers to just one run to help the Crimson Tide complete the sweep.
“He’s just a competitor, and he hasn’t had his really A plus stuff, and in a couple weeks,” Vaughn said. “But like the difference of today and maybe the last two outings, he was able to stop it.”
Sooners head coach Skip Johnson has developed elite pitching in his eight years in Norman: the 15th overall pick from last year’s draft, Kyson Witherspoon; the 22nd overall pick from 2020, Cade Cavalli; and the No. 7 pick in the 2022 draft, Cade Horton.
Johnson also has a long-standing relationship with future first-ballot Hall of Famer and three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw, who regularly worked together during the offseason. Kershaw never went to college but would always go out of his way to seek Johnson’s advice throughout his 18-year big-league career.
The Sooners’ offensive leaders
The Sooners’ offense is led by left fielder Trey Gambill, who leads the team in batting average, hitting .319, and OPS with a 1.065. He also has four home runs and 19 RBIs, 12 stolen bases, with more walks than strikeouts, with 23 base on balls to just 17 punchouts.
Their shortstop, Jaxon Willits, also has more walks than strikeouts, with 18 free passes to 17 punchouts. Willits is hitting .313, with two homers, 23 RBIs, and a .931 OPS.
“I love their shortstop. Willits is just a gamer. He’s just a baseball player,” Vaughn said.
The Sooners’ third baseman, Wichita State transfer Camden Johnson, has a batting average of .312, with three long balls, 17 RBIs, a .945 OPS, and leads the team with 19 stolen bases. Willits and Johnson combined for a scary left side of the infield offensively.
The Sooners catcher, Brendan Brock, who was recently named the fifth-best catcher in the SEC according to D1Baseball, just ahead of Crimson Tide catcher Brady Neal, will be a thorn in the side of the Crimson Tide. Brock is hitting .289, leading the Sooners in RBIs and home runs with six and 27, and a .953 OPS.
The Sooners are not afraid to run when they get on base, as they already have 73 swiped bags on the season and have only been caught eight times. The Sooners are 16th in the nation in stolen bases and second in the SEC.
“A lot of speed, kind of a blend, a little bit of Kentucky, and probably Auburn,” Vaughn said. “Like, there’s enough guys with something there, but they can run, and they can create some chaos and do some of that, too.”
Key for the Crimson Tide
The Crimson Tide played its first clean defensive series in its week over the Tigers this past weekend with no errors all series long, which has been a rarity for this team. The Crimson Tide will need to continue to play clean defense against the Sooners if it wants any chance of winning the series in Norman.
All the Crimson Tide catchers, John Lemm, Brady Neal, and Will Plattner, will need to be on high alert to prevent the Sooners from causing havoc on the base paths and from stealing extra runs.
The Crimson Tide pitching staff will need to continue to deal, as they are coming off a series in which they held then-No. 5-ranked Auburn to just four runs all series, three of which came in the first inning of all three games.
The series will kick off Thursday night at Kimrey Family Stadium, scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT, and all three games can be streamed on SECN+.
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