Oklahoma baseball drops opener to East Carolina
At the top of Oklahoma baseball’s checklist of ways to open the Charlottesville Regional with a win, you would have found pitching and defense. They go hand in hand.
Neither showed up to Disharoon Park. Gulp. Bad day at the yard.
Braden Carmichael survived just 2.2 innings, walking a season-high five as East Carolina found itself with traffic early and often, scoring runs in seven different innings Friday night en route to a 14-5 blowout victory.
“I thought they did a great job with some pitches early. You saw a couple choppers. Jackson Nicklaus slipped down. That’s an out. There’s a lot of little things that happened. Whatever happened, happened. We picked a bad day to play bad. How you turn that around is winning pitches and innings,” said Oklahoma head coach Skip Johnson.
Carmichael’s ineffectiveness combined with porous defense made for a bad combo against the high-powered East Carolina offense. ECU finished the night with 15 hits.
OKLAHOMA WITH NO ANSWERS VS. YESAVAGE
To make matters worse, Pirate starter Trey Yesavage was as advertised throwing 5.1 innings and allowing just four hits, one run and striking out seven. Dominant at times.
Anthony Mackenzie and Easton Carmichael singled in back-to-back plate appearances in the second. But Yesavage bounced back retiring the side with a strikeout of Jackson Nicklaus and a pop out from Wallace Clark.
Bryce Madron and Mackenzie reached base in the fourth only to see Yesavage escape with consecutive strikeouts.
Every Sooners mistake was matched with a punishing blow as East Carolina scored three runs in the fifth and three runs in the sixth to build a 10-0 lead.
Overpowered and overmatched.
“You got to get your outs on time. It’s a momentum offense,” Johnson said. “That’s what they’re controlled by. They feed off each other and you can see that as the game went on.
“You’ve got to take care of the ball and play good catch and get your outs on time.”
LONG WEEKEND BEGINS
Now Oklahoma must make the less preferred travel through the elimination bracket. A long weekend ahead if Oklahoma wants to continue its season. And it starts with a short turnaround Saturday morning versus Army.
“They’ve got to separate it and flush it and get to the next pitch. Just come out and compete and win pitches and win innings. That’s how you end up doing it,” Johnson said. “You can’t dwell on the result of winning or losing. You just have to stay in the process as much as you can.
“Winning pitches. Having good at-bats, having good approaches. Having good pitch and catch. You’ve got to do all those things to play baseball. That’s why it’s such a great game. One day you can feel as low as anything. The next day you can feel as high as anything.”
