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 10 OKLAHOMA (28-8, 8-4) Rank: 8 |
Waco, Texas • Attendance: 2,787 |
 12BAYLOR (19-17, 7-4) Rank: NR |
I couldn't be more impressed with Baylor Baseball right now if I tried. That was a truly inspiring series from the Bears, who took the rubber game from the Oklahoma Sooners in dramatic fashion on Sunday afternoon. To tell the story of this series, however, we need to start with game one, where Baylor scraped out a win against one of the best starting pitchers in the nation.
Jonathan Gray is Oklahoma's ace and a future Top-10 MLB draft prospect (barring injury of course... TINSTAAPP, after all). The kid is a CC Sabathia-like 6'4" - 245, and he throws a 98 MPH fastball. He doesn't just "touch" 98 mind you, he was hitting 98 in the fifth inning of Friday's game according to Kendall Rogers, who was in attendance. He's pretty much awesome, and if your favorite Major League team takes him in this summer's draft, then your favorite Major League team sucked last year and had a terrible record... So... Both sorry and congrats.
Anyway, apparently Dillon Newman didn't get the memo that he was supposed to lose this game, because he decided to match Gray inning-for-inning until Gray's bullpen faltered and gave up a walk-off homerun to CAL. EFFING. TOWEY. Here's a fun fact about Mr. Towey's weekend: He had only two hits in this series. They were both game winning homeruns. As Mark would say, Cal has BAMF stamped all over his wallet from this point forward.
Saturday's game was tough sledding against Dillon Overton - another Sooner pitcher expected to go in the first couple rounds of the draft. Overton is a lefty who sits in the low 90s with a decent slider and change. The Bears could only manage one run against him, and although Max Garner threw a nice game, he suffered the loss. The only bright spot for the Baylor offense was Nathan Orf's 3-3 day.
On Sunday, both teams were sick of pitcher's duels and decided to break out the lumber. Through the first seven innings, Miller (2-5, 3 RBI) and Porter (1-4, 2 R, 2 RBI) accounted for most of the offense, but in the eighth, with Bears down two runs, Cal Towey belted a game-winning grand slam. It's not an exaggeration to say that I've been waiting for Towey to break out the entire year. He's been hot for a couple weeks now, but this is the first series where he has flashed his homerun potential. He now sits at a very nice .312/.409/.493, and if he can keep this pace up, may find himself drafted this summer in the early-mid rounds of the draft. Another nice stat for Towey is a clutchiness factor of 10! I could tell you how I came up with that, but it's very scientific... you wouldn't understand... Especially you , Pras.
Next weekend, the Bears travel to Fort Worth to take on TCU, which is, without a doubt, the most disappointing team in the entire country. They were universally picked to win the Big 12 this year, and they currently sit at 5-7, 16-20. I'm actually a little worried about this series. It's not as if TCU suddenly lost all their talent... they just haven't played up to it. Here's hoping they don't start next weekend. Feed the Beaver.
Check out Baylor's official recap for stats and video from today's 12-10 win.