Baseball Home for Two Midweek Tilts

April 10-11 | Norman, Okla. | L. Dale Mitchell Park

Tickets

SoonerSports.tv

KREF 99.3/1400

Live Stats

Notes

Twitter

Midweek Pitching Match-Ups
First Pitch	Oklahoma	Opponent
Tues. vs. UALR, 6:30 p.m.	RHP-Kyle Tyler (2-2, 3.52)	RHP-Aaron Funk (1-0, 3.70)
>>>Last Start	at ORU (4/3): W, 6.1 IP, 1 ER, 9 K	at La. Tech (4/4): W, 7.0 IP, 1 ER, 5 K
Wed. vs. ORU, 6:30 p.m.	TBA	LHP-Taylor Varnell (2-2, 3.72)
>>>Last Start	N/A	vs. OU (4/3): L, 5.0 IP, 2 ER, 7 K

Oklahoma Sooners
Record: 23-11 (8-1 Big 12) Coach: Skip Johnson (1st Season) Career Record/Years: 23-11/1 Rank: 11^CBN/15^BA/16^D1B/17^USA

Little Rock Trojans
Record: 17-13 (6-5 Sun Belt) Coach: Chris Curry (5th Season) Career Record/Years: 80-108/5 Rank: NR

Oral Roberts Golden Eagles
Record: 17-13 (8-4 Summit) Coach: Ryan Folmar (6th Season) Career Record/Years: 194-124/6 Rank: NR

On the Air
Stream	SoonerSports.tv Chad McKee George Frazier
Radio	KREF 1400 AM TuneIn Radio App Toby Rowland

Player to Watch
DH-Tyler Hardman Hardman is hitting .347 since March 13 and lifted his season average to .263. He posted a career-best 4-for-4 day at TCU with two two-out RBI singles and a double in Saturday's series-clincher.

FIRST PITCH

The Oklahoma baseball team plays two of its final three scheduled midweek contests at home this week in a quick five-game homestand. The Sooners welcome Little Rock to L. Dale Mitchell Park on Tuesday and intrastate rival Oral Roberts on Wednesday. Both games are set for a 6:30 p.m. first pitch. Voice of the Sooners Toby Rowland will call both games locally on Sportstalk 99.3 FM/1400 AM with Wednesday's game airing across the Sooner Sports Network. The games can also be streamed online at Sportstalk1400.com or on the TuneIn mobile app. Sooner Sports TV will broadcast both games to its digital platform, SoonerSports.tv, and is available with a premium subscription. Veteran OU broadcaster Chad McKee (play-by-play) and former OU and MLB pitcher George Frazier (color) will be in the booth on the TV sides for both games.

ABOUT THE SOONERS

Oklahoma won its sixth series in a row by taking two out of three at TCU over the weekend. The Sooners are 19-5 at home this season, including a 3-1 mark in midweek contests. Sophomore catcher Brady Lindsly is hitting a team-leading .333 with 10 doubles and 20 RBI. Junior right fielder Steele Walker hit two home runs in OU's series-clinching win over the Horned Frogs on Sunday to push his season total to five and career total to 16. He is hitting .325 and slugging .496 with 26 runs driven in and 25 scored. Redshirt-sophomore center fielder Kyler Murray is slugging a team-high .529 and tied with Walker in home runs at five. He went deep twice on the Sooners' series-opener at TCU on Friday. Murray is hitting .298 with 25 runs driven in and 24 scored. Junior right-handed pitcher Kyle Tyler has moved from the weekend rotation to a midweek starter role and has lowered his earned run average to 3.52 with a 2-2 record and 41 strikeouts in 30.2 innings pitched. He struck out nine in a career-high 6.1 innings at Oral Roberts (4/3) last week.

PROMOTIONS

“T-Shirt Tuesday” returns for the first game of the week. An exclusive OU baseball shirt will be given away to the first 100 fans in attendance. Wednesday is “Outdoor Sportsman Night”. There will be an OU baseball camo hat giveaway and tickets can be purchased for $5 with the code “WILDLIFE” at SoonerSports.com/promocode. Fans in attendance can also enter a drawing to win an OU Carhart jacket.

THE FORECAST

Projected Starters
OU Lineup	BA/OBP/SLG	Notes
LF-Cade Harris	.298/.43/.473	19th all-time at OU with 91 career walks.
SS-Brandon Zaragoza	.278/.324/.308	Made 82 consecutive starts at shortstop.
RF-Steele Walker	.325/.436/.496	Second career two-HR game at TCU (4/8-Gm1).
CF-Kyler Murray	.298/.409/.529	First career two-HR game at TCU (4/6).
C-Brady Lindsly	.333/.418/.462	Walk-off double to beat Baylor (3/30) in the 10th.
3B-Brylie Ware	.299/.368/.402	Enters the week with 95 career hits in 90 games.
2B-Kyle Mendenhall	.300/.345/.431	Fifth player in program history to turn 100 DPs.
1B-Cade Cavali	.235/.372/.357	Hit second HR of the season vs. Baylor (3/31).
DH-Tyler Hardman	.263/.307/.375	Hitting .347 (17-for-49) since March 13.

SCOUTING LITTLE ROCK

Coming off a series loss to Georgia Southern, Little Rock enters Tuesday's matchup with a 17-13 record and have gone 6-5 In Sun Belt action. Troy Alexander is hitting .339 and leads the team in hits, extra-base hits, runs, RBI, and slugging percentage. Chase Coker owns a team-best .340 average and a .400 OBP. RHP Aaron Funk will make his fourth start of the season. The freshman has tossed 24.1 innings and enters the matchup with a 1-0 record and 3.70 ERA. In his last start, Funk threw seven innings of one-hit, one-run ball, and earned his first career win in a midweek matchup against Louisiana Tech.

SCOUTING ORAL ROBERTS

Oral Roberts and head coach Ryan Folmar are 17-13 overall and 8-4 in the Summit League. The Golden Eagles enter the week following a series loss at Western Illinois. Spencer Henson is hitting a team-high .359 with four home runs and 26 RBI. Noah Cummings has also been an important piece to the Golden Eagle lineup this season, hitting .276 and has a team-best five home runs and 30 RBI. Lefty Taylor Varnell gets his second start on the mound against OU in as many weeks. He is 2-2 with a 3.72 ERA and 40 strikeouts across 29 innings in six starts.

Next Home Series
Oklahoma vs. Texas April 13-15 \| Norman, Okla. The Red River Showdown pits the top two teams in the Big 12 standings in a top-25 match-up in Norman this weekend. Saturday and Sunday's games will air nationally on ESPNU and ESPN2. TICKETS

SPRING CLEANING

Oklahoma brought out the brooms on back-to-back weekends to start conference play with sweeps of West Virginia and Baylor. The Sooners swept back-to-back three-game conference series for the first time since beating Missouri and winning at Texas Tech in 2006. Overall, OU moved to 8-0 in the Big 12 for the first time in the 22-year history of the league and to start conference play since 1984 in the Big Eight following two wins at TCU. The Sooners last swept back-to-back three-game series to start conference play in 1974 with Big Eight wins over Kansas and at Nebraska.

REACHING THE CHARTS

Oklahoma, which is up to No. 11 by CBN (4/9), became ranked for the first time in 2018 peaking at No. 19 in the Baseball America and Collegiate Baseball News (4/2) polls. The Sooners were last ranked No. 23 by D1Baseball.com and No. 24 by BA on May 22, 2017 entering the Big 12 Championship. Oklahoma was ranked for 11 weeks, consecutively, in 2017, including five weeks in all five polls. OU is ranked in every poll for the second week in a row. Last season, the Sooners peaked at No. 9 by Baseball America (4/3/17) following a series win over No. 2 Texas Tech. Oklahoma went 22-19 as a ranked team last season.