Texas baseball pitching struggles remain through comeback vs. OU

The roller coaster ride continues for the Texas baseball program this season through a crazy weekend series against the Oklahoma Sooners in the Red River Rivalry game on the diamond. Texas took the three-game weekend series against the Sooners thanks to a massive late-game comeback on April 3 to win by the score of 12-8.

Head coach David Pierce and the Longhorns pulled off the improbable rally to avoid losing two straight and this weekend series to the Sooners. At one point in this game, Texas was down by a mark of 7-1. But an impressive rally that saw them score a whopping 11 runs in the last three innings got them to a dozen for the game, which amounted to the four-run win to round out the weekend.

Moreover, the pitching struggles did continue for the Longhorns in this one. Each of the Longhorns’ four pitchers that were used in this game gave up at least one earned run. That included a tough outing from the sophomore left-hander Lucas Gordon, who gave up a season-worst four earned runs and eight hits in just 3.2 innings on the mound.

With the late-game help from the Texas bats, Gordon avoided getting his second loss of the season. But this is still something that hurts his earned run average on the season so far, now sitting at 2.53.

Texas baseball gets a big rally from the bats led by Murphy Stehly to beat OU 12-8

The win did go to the redshirt junior right-hander Coy Cobb, as he allowed just one earned run in two innings of work. That was the second win of the season for Cobb, who is now sporting a record of 2-0.

It was good to see the Texas bats come through the way they did in this one. Texas’ offense has remained strong throughout much of this tough stretch of games where the team is slipping up in terms of success in the win column for the last few weeks.

And the bats were ready to go late in this one. Despite striking out 15 times on April 3, Texas was able to get a dozen runs with the same number of hits. Half of the runs scored for the Longhorns in this one came by way of a pair of three-run homers in the seventh inning.

Texas got a three-run shot from Murphy Stehly and another from Dylan Campbell, which both came in the top of the seventh inning.

Furthermore, Stehly was one of the driving forces for this big-time late-game rally for the Longhorns. Along with his aforementioned home run in the seventh inning, Stehly came up with three hits in five at-bats, four runs batted in, and two runs scored.

Stehly is now batting an incredible .458 on the season so far, with eight home runs and 31 runs batted in. He is one of the hottest offensive players in the Big 12 of late. And it couldn’t really be coming at a better time for a Texas team that needs a spark at the moment.

Following this four-run win over the Sooners, Texas is sporting a record of 21-9 (3-3 Big 12). Next up for the Longhorns is a one-game midweek series with UTRGV at home at UFCU Disch-Falk Field on April 5, with the first pitch time set for 6:30 p.m. CT.