Three Strikes: Cowboys’ Pitching Excels, Inside ORU’s Upset At LSU

While he might not have predicted a sub-2.00 ERA through three weeks of games, Oklahoma State coach Josh Holliday and his assistant coaches, which includes pitching coach Rob Walton, the 2016 Assistant Coach of the Year, saw the makings of a pretty good staff back in the fall. 

“In the fall, as coaches, we would go through some intrasquad games and come back and say, ‘Man, there were some really good pitches thrown to home plate today,’ ” Holliday said. “And we’d have an intrasquad game the next day and say, ‘Man, there were some really good pitches thrown to home plate today.’ And over four-game intrasquad weeks, you go, ‘There wasn’t a guy that went to the mound this week that didn’t throw the ball good.’ So, we knew we had some talent.”

The top returning stalwart is fifth-year junior lefthander Parker Scott. A key piece of the OSU pitching puzzle going back to 2019, he is now the unquestioned staff ace. Through three starts this season, he is 3-0, 1.06, 20 strikeouts and just three walks in 17 innings. 

Scott’s stuff isn’t overpowering. In fact, his fastball this season has topped out at 91 mph, but he can locate everything in his varied repertoire and at this stage of his career, he’s unflappable. 

“It all starts with Parker with his poise. He seems to always manage himself quite well,” Holliday said. “He’s got four pitches. He can use the fastball, the curve, the cutter and the change.”

Fourth-year sophomore righthander Brett Standlee, being used as the team’s go-to reliever after a couple of years in a swing role, has also been as steady as ever. He has allowed four hits and one run with one walk and 13 strikeouts in six innings of work this season. 

True freshman righthander Trevor Martin has joined Standlee as an important piece out of the bullpen. In seven innings, he has given up four hits and one run with three walks and seven strikeouts. 

But the biggest impact newcomer has been junior college transfer lefthander Justin Wrobleski, who has given up just one run in 13 innings this season, with his best outing coming last weekend in the Grand Canyon series. Against the Lopes, he threw seven shutout innings, giving up one hit and two walks with 13 strikeouts. 

After pitching in the bullpen the first weekend against Wichita State and throwing five solid innings against Illinois State two weekends ago, this was the first time Wrobleski had truly controlled a game like that this season. 

“(Wrobleski) was a guy in junior college last year that broke his jaw, got hit by a ball, which really limited his pitching last spring before the shutdown,” Holliday said. “He trained all summer long and really got in amazing shape, came into this fall just loaded and ready to go, so that’s a compliment to Justin and his training.”

The most important cohort to Oklahoma State’s success this season might be this last group, though, those pitchers who didn’t get a chance to fully prove themselves in 2020 who are now fighting to hold down important roles. 

Second-year freshman righthanders Justin Campbell (0.53, 17 IP) and Kale Davis (3.18 ERA, 5.2 IP), fourth-year junior righthander Zach Cable (0.00 ERA, 3 IP) and third-year freshman righthander Roman Phansalkar (8.31, 4.1 IP) all fall in this category. 

Campbell is coming off of perhaps the best outing of his Oklahoma State career. On Tuesday against Oral Roberts, he threw seven shutout innings, giving up eight hits and one walk with 14 strikeouts. And if that wasn’t his best outing, the one last week against Missouri State probably is. In that start, he threw six shutout innings, giving up two hits and one walk with 12 strikeouts. 

“I see a stronger, more focused version of (Campbell) with more arm strength this year, much more of an edge than ever before, a better front side in his delivery, which is allowing him to pound the strike zone with four pitches and a tremendous amount of downward plane to the ball,” Holliday said. 

But this group of relatively unproven pitchers is headlined by second-year freshman righthander Bryce Osmond, the top recruit in a highly-regarded 2019 recruiting class of pitchers. Last year, he was just starting to pick up steam when the season was canceled.

This season, he’s taken the ball in the weekend rotation all three weekends, and while he’s not a finished product yet, he’s already been more consistent than he was at the start of last season. In 14 innings this season, he has a 3.21 ERA and 13 strikeouts compared to seven walks. At the end of last season, he had a 5.06 ERA with 19 strikeouts and 13 walks in 16 innings. 

As a strategy, Oklahoma State looks to recruit pitchers who are exceptional athletes, and Osmond fits that bill, giving the coaching staff confidence that he’ll pick up the finer points of the craft as time goes on. And it doesn’t hurt that his stuff is really good. 

“He’s a phenomenal athlete. He moves off the mound incredibly well and this is probably as athletic a pitcher as there is in college baseball,” Holliday said. “He is a fast-twitch, quick, explosive kid, so he fields his position, holds runners, he’s got four quality pitches, and at times those pitches can be overpowering.”

The last time Oklahoma State had a clearly pitching-centric team was 2016, which also happens to be the last time the Cowboys ended the season in the College World Series. We’re a long way from finding out if this particular team is as pitching-led as it looks now, although a home series with No. 3 Vanderbilt this weekend will provide further clues, but the talent is in place for that to be the case when it’s all said and done. 

Oral Roberts Stuns Louisiana State in Baton Rouge

The most jaw-dropping result of the college baseball season so far has to be the 22-7 win for Oral Roberts at Louisiana State last Friday. It was odd enough that the Golden Eagles pounced on righthander Jaden Hill for eight runs in the first inning, chasing the Preseason All-American pick after one-third of an inning. 

But then to see ORU continue to pour it on as the game went on, all while its own bullpen, led by righthander Evan Kowalski’s seven scoreless innings of relief, found a way to hold the Tigers at bay, was even more jarring. 

And, by the way, for those inquiring coaches who would like to know the Oral Roberts secret to getting to Jaden Hill as early and often as it did, well, there really is no secret, but coach Ryan Folmar does have some advice. 

“I think everybody has those days and has those outings where you don’t have your best stuff, and obviously for him, it was one of those days where he didn’t have his best stuff,” he said. “He’s got really good stuff. I don’t think you can go up there without a plan (against him), so our guys had a specific plan in mind, and we were able to jump on a couple of fastballs early and I think that kind of changes the momentum a little bit early, and then we rode a little bit of momentum through the rest of our lineup.”

A blowout win in Baton Rouge against LSU is worthy of celebration on its own, but it’s what ORU did after taking a 12-0 loss Saturday that turned what would have been a quirky one-off result into something more. 

In the series finale, two days after winning a game that featured 29 combined runs scored, it shut down the LSU offense in a 3-1 win. 

Sixth-year senior righthander Tanner Rogen held the Tigers to five hits and one run in six innings and a quartet of relievers did even better, limiting the lineup to just one hit over the final three frames. That was enough to give the ORU offense time to work, take advantage of some sloppy defense by LSU and score three runs over the final two innings for the victory. 

It was quite a different way of winning than what it had done just two days prior. 

“If you want to win throughout the year, if you want to win in May and June, in my opinion, you have to find different ways to win,” Folmar said. “We kind of won it offensively on Friday, and on Sunday we won it with pitching and defense. I think good teams find a way to win games on both sides of it, and we were able to do those things this weekend.”

A key all weekend but especially in the win on Sunday was how well Oral Roberts limited LSU freshman slugger Dylan Crews. In the three games, he went a combined 2-for-11, and his 0-for-4 showing Sunday was his first hitless game of his young career. 

“I don’t think we gameplanned specifically for him,” Folmar said. “He is obviously an extremely talented young player and he hit some balls hard. He just happened to hit them right at some guys this weekend, too. Really talented guy, has a bright future in front of him. We were just able to pitch him pretty good and defensively play him pretty well.”

Oral Roberts was struggling coming into its weekend in Baton Rouge. It was 2-6 and hadn’t posted a winning weekend. And it’s important to keep in mind that one series does not a turnaround make. Recall last season, when ORU went on the road and took a series from Baylor, only to be swept at home by Incarnate Word and Dallas Baptist at home each of the next two weekends. 

But one series can be a step in the right direction, and there’s little doubt that this result was that for the Golden Eagles. 

Jonathan Cannon Returns for Georgia

In what was already going to be a bit of a rebuilding year for the program, Georgia went into the season missing arguably its two most important pitchers, fourth-year junior lefthander Ryan Webb and second-year freshman righthander Jonathan Cannon. 

Webb, who was recovering from Covid-19 when the season started, returned against Gardner-Webb the second weekend of the season and has been excellent in two short starts. 

Cannon, the No. 42 prospect for the 2021 draft, is coming off of a battle with mononucleosis, but made his return on Tuesday in a two-inning start against Georgia Southern. 

Although his outing was much more about getting him some work in a live game and building up his endurance than about his performance, it’s worth noting that he threw the ball well. He faced one over the minimum in two shutout frames, striking out one batter. 

It’s safe to assume that Cannon won’t immediately be ready to pitch deep into games. As anyone who has dealt with mono will tell you, the fatigue can linger for a while after you’re back on your feet, and in Cannon’s case, the illness undoubtedly interrupted his preparation for the season. 

But once he’s fully healthy, it could change the way we view the Bulldogs a little bit this season. Certainly, a one-two punch in the rotation of Webb and Cannon will give Georgia a chance to compete each and every weekend, and the latter getting back on the mound on Tuesday was a big first step in making that one-two punch a reality.