Sooners Meet ORU in Tulsa Tuesday

NORMAN – No. 11 OU (19-8, 4-5 SEC) completes an eight-game road swing Tuesday night in Tulsa as the Sooners take on Oral Roberts (14-11, 6-0 Summit League).

The game is slated for a 6 p.m. CT first pitch at Chapman Park and can be seen via subscription on the Summit League Network. The game can be heard on the radio via 99.3 FM/1400 AM The REF with Chad McKee on the call.

THE BASICS

• The Sooners enter the contest at 19-8 following a series loss to No. 2 Texas in Austin last weekend. OU held late leads in games two and three vs. the rival Longhorns, but late-inning scoring helped Texas walk off the Sooners on Friday and Saturday.

• OU is 4-2 in midweek matchups on the year, highlighted by wins over No. 22 Arizona State and Dallas Baptist. Tuesday's game is the first of two meeting between the Sooners and Golden Eagles as ORU makes the return trip to Norman on April 21.

• Oklahoma is ranked at No. 11 in this week's D1Baseball Top 25 and rank in the top 25 in all five major polls.

• On the season, OU is outscoring opponents 199-116 and the pitching staff has a team ERA of 4.06 with 270 strikeouts to 122 walks.

• The Sooners started the season with a program-record seven straight games scoring double digits and have scored 10+ runs in 10 games.

• OU ranks in the top 30 nationally in a number of categories including walks (28th, 160), stolen bases (16th, 73), strikeouts per nine innings (23rd, 10.8) and hits allowed per nine innings (17th, 7.2). The pitching staff's 4.06 ERA sits just outside the top 30 at No. 33 and OU's 23 double plays turned on the year ranks 32nd in the nation and second in the SEC.

OPPONENT OUTLOOK

• The Sooners meet the Golden Eagles for the first time this season and the 56th time in the history of the two programs. OU leads the series 47-39 and has won six of the last nine matchups.

• A season ago, the teams split the series one to one with each team wining on the other's home field.

• The last matchup at Chapman Park in Tulsa was an 11-2 Sooners win.

• The Golden Eagles are 14-11 this season and 6-0 in Summit League play. Their weekend series at North Dakota State this past weekend was canceled due to field conditions in Fargo. Their most recent game was last Wednesday in Tulsa, a 4-3 loss to Air Force.

• ORU is paced at the plate by senior outfielder Makani Tanaka who is batting .323 with four home runs and 17 RBIs. On the mound, the Eagles are starting sophomore RHP Brenden Asher on Tuesday night who holds a 3.60 ERA with six strikeouts to no walks in five innings pitched on the year.

ON THE BUMP

• A season after losing his weekend rotation to the draft, including Friday night starter and first-round pick Kyson Witherspoon, OU head coach and pitching guru Skip Johnson's retooled staff is off to an exceptional start on the bump.

• OU's weekend rotation of RHP junior LJ Mercurius, LHP junior Cameron Johnson and LHP freshman Cord Rager have combined for 128 strikeouts to 48 walks and 40 ER on the year.

• UNLV transfer LJ Mercurius who was a part of the USA Baseball Collegiate National Team this past summer, has transitioned smoothly to Oklahoma in his starter role, holding a 3.53 ERA with 49 strikeouts that ranks in the top 50 in the country.

• In Mercurius' OU debut on opening weekend vs. Oklahoma State, the righty fanned a career-high tying 12 batters while allowing just one run on three hits.

• Mercurius' 5-2 record in seven starts ranks 13th in the nation for victories and the righty has one complete game, a seven-inning one-hitter vs. Gonzaga on Feb. 28.

• Johnson, is 3-1 and has registered at least seven strikeouts in five of his seven starts on the year and has two appearances with zero walks allowed.

• Sunday starter and freshman Cord Rager out of Maypearl, Texas, has 35 K's to 13 walks on the season with a 2-1 record.

• Along with the starting pitching, OU's bullpen has been impactful. Senior transfer Jackson Cleveland has taken on a closer role with four saves on the year to rank third in the SEC. The Miami transfer has 11 appearances and has struck out 15 in his 17.2 innings. Sophomore transfer Kadyn Leon has made 12 appearances and allowed four runs in 15.1 IP to go with 14 strikeouts.

• Junior Jason Bodin, who made 31 relief appearances in 2025 to rank second in the SEC, has made 10 appearances in 2026 and ranks tied for second on the team with three victories (3-0). He has 21 strikeouts in 16.1 innings.

• Seventeen arms have seen the mound for Coach Skip Johnson, with four pitchers outside the weekend rotation making at least one start.

• The staff's 4.06 team ERA ranks 33rd in the country. The group's 1.35 WHIP ranks 43rd in the nation.

• The OU arms have already registered four shutouts in 2026, eclipsing the three total the team had in 2025.

AT THE PLATE

• Through 27 games OU is outscoring the opposition 199-116 (7.4 runs/game). The offense is batting .285 with 84 extra-base hits to opponents' 58.

• All seventeen Sooners that have made a plate appearance this season has registered a hit.

• Senior Trey Gambill paces the starters with a .319 batting average. Three other Sooners that have started at least 20 games are batting over .300 in Camden Johnson (.312), Jaxon Willits (.313) and Deiten Lachance (.300). Junior Brendan Brock leads OU with six home runs while Gambill has four long balls. Ten Sooners have combined for 24 blasts.

• The Sooners have homered in 14 of 27 games.

• OU ranks third in the SEC with eight triples so far on the season, good for 38th in the country.

• The team started the season with a program-record seven straight games scoring double digits and have scored 10+ runs in 10 games.

• Plate discipline has been key to the OU offense as the Sooners rank 28th in the country and eighth in the SEC in walks drawn with 160. Six Sooners have recorded 10-plus walks, led by Gambill's 23.

RANKINGS CHATTER

• The Sooners come in at No. 11 in this week's D1Baseball top 25 and rank in the top 25 in all five major polls (D1, Baseball America, Perfect Game, NCBWA and the USA TODAY Coaches Poll).

• OU is 3-4 in ranked matchups in 2026 with two wins over top-25 Texas A&M and takedown of then-No. 10 TCU on Opening Weekend. A season ago, OU went 11-15 in ranked matchups.

RECAPPING TEXAS SERIES

• OU suffered its first SEC series loss this past weekend in Austin at the hands of rival and second-ranked Texas.

• The Longhorns (23-4, 7-2 SEC) took Thursday's opener 14-0 in seven innings before consecutive walk-off wins over the Sooners in 10 innings on Friday (4-3) and Saturday (5-4).

• OU held the lead into the seventh innings in each of the game two and three losses, allowing the Longhorns to send the game into extras and walk off the Sooners in both games.

• The weekend was highlighted for OU by an eight-strikeout performance from starting LHP Cameron Johnson on Friday night. The lefty went five innings of shutout pitching, allowing just one hit to go with his eight K's and four walks. It was Johnson's fifth start of five innings or more on the season and fifth start with seven or more strikeouts.

UP NEXT

• OU returns to SEC play at home this weekend, welcoming No. 16 Alabama to Kimrey Family Stadium, April 2-4. It will be just the second trip the Crimson Tide has made to Norman in program history.

• Thursday's opener and Friday's game two are slated for 6:30 p.m. CT starts before a 2 p.m. finale on Saturday. The series can be seen on SECN+ and heard on the radio via The REF 99.3 FM/1400 AM

• Season and single game tickets for the 2026 season are available now on SoonerSports.com/tickets. For more information about Oklahoma baseball tickets, contact the OU Athletics Ticket Office at 405-325-2424, by email at outickets@ou.edu or by visiting SoonerSports.com/tickets.

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