# 3 seed Liberty 37-21 #31 RPI
#2 seed Oklahoma 37-21 #19 RPI
June baseball and regional play is here. Liberty will make it's 3rd straight appearance and 2nd consecutive at large appearance, both of which are program records. The Gainesville regional is universally agreed to be one of the toughest and most projections has it as the toughest matchup. Central Michigan is certainly one of the best 4 seeds and they feature one of the better starters in the nation in Andrew Taylor that they will likely throw vs the Gators in Game 1. He has a 3.19 ERA in 79 IP and went 8 and 3 on the year. The Gators lost ace Hunter Barko who beat the Flames in the first game of the season to TJ surgery but Sproat and Neely became 2 very solid starters with mid 3 ERA's for the Gators. Jud Fabian smashed 22 homers drove in 53 runs but hit just .247 on the campaign. Lanford, Thompson (who hurt the Flames) & Riopelle all turned into .300 hitters with power for the Gators. HC Scott Jackson said the turf was playing much faster now in June than it was back in February so it's good that the Flames had a day or so to get adjusted.
The key to winning a regional is pretty simple. It's incredibly important to stay in the winner's bracket. You conserve pitching and really make the opponent play perfect baseball to come back. Liberty has won that Friday game 3 times recently but has never been able to follow it up with a win on Saturday over the host. Liberty knows it can beat the Gators and has experience to draw from it but they will have to go through he red hot sooners first to get a potential matchup with the Gators. One advantage to a tough regional is that the host can't throw a lower end starter in their first game and get by. If you the Gators were to do that with Central Michigan they could easily end up in the losers bracket. Some of the other hosts with weaker 4 seeds will throw their #2 guy and save their ace for the second round. There are 2 or 3 super weak 4 seeds that got hot and won the tournament. Those teams usually get smoked in the regional.
Pitching Matchup
Liberty: Dylan Cumming - 5-4 with a 4.71 ERA and 61 K's in 72 2/3 innings. Cumming will sit low 90's with devastating sink. If he's on then the Sooners will be pounding the ball in the dirt. I like the matchup with a team that doesn't hit a lot of homers but relies on gap to gap hitting and speed on the base paths.
Oklahoma : Jake Bennett 7-3 with a 3.60 ERA and 103 K's in 90 innings. Features low to mid 90's fastball with decent off-speed. Projected draft pick in rounds 3-5 by most publications. Bennett comes in throwing well in his last 3 starts.
I was able to go back and watch some of the Big 12 tournament and listened to Nick Pierce's clubhouse report interview with the voice of the Sooners today. Oklahoma scores a lot of runs but it's not via the longball. They hit just 54 total homeruns this year (16 by Peyton Graham) compared to Liberty's 75. Oklahoma changed their offensive approach as they brought in former big league speedster Reggie Willits. They really want to hit gaps, get runners on base and keep them in motion via hit and run and stolen base attempts. As a club they were 135-169 in Stolen base attempts compared to Liberty who was 39 for 46 (Orndorff 17 for 17) on the season. Peyton Graham is the center piece of the lineup as he hit .339 with 16 homers and 60 RBI's. Tanner Tredwaway and Blake Robertson are key cogs as well that hit .359 and .321 respectively. Graham is another guy projected to go in the first 3 or 4 rounds of the MLB draft. Robertson was the newcomer of the year in the Big12. As a team they won the last 5 series in a row and this was just their 3rd ever Big 12 Tournament title. It's also the Sooners first trip to the tournament since 2018 so virtually none of these players have any experience in the tournament. They didn't enter the top 25 until the last week of the regular season and were picked 6th in the pre season poll so they have kind of snuck on the college baseball world this year. Their biggest weakness is the bullpen according to stats and Nick's interview today. Trevin Michael transferred in from Lamar and won the closers job and has been one of the only reliable arms out of the pen. He has a 3.46 ERA in 52 IP and a whopping 76 K's. The Flames don't want to be trailing late. Oklahoma will look to ride Bennett & Michael to a win. The Flames will try to get Bennett our early and get into the underbelly of that Sooner bullpen. The Team ERA is 5.57 compared to the Flames 4.14
Team ERA : Oklahoma 5.57 Liberty 4.14
Team BA : Oklahoma .297 Liberty .272
Team HR's Oklahoma 54 Liberty 75
Team Fielding % : Oklahoma .972 Liberty .974
Stolen Bases : Oklahoma 135 Liberty 39
Advantage :
Starters : Have to give the nod to Oklahoma in the SP matchup but Cumming is a bulldog and if he's on he can match Bennett pitch for pitch.
Bullpen : Liberty has a decided advantage here. Oklahoma has just 2 guys with an ERA under 4.77 but the Flames are likely to see a heavy dose of both of them.
Batting Average : Oklahoma hits just under 30 points higher and has a higher OBP.
Power : Liberty has the advantage because they have more home run potential though total XB hits are very close. In a 1 game scenario home run power can't be overstated.
Fielding : Even
Baserunning : Heavy advantage to the Sooners here.
For Liberty to get the win they need Cumming to get them out of the gate and to the 5th inning or so with 2 runs or less. They need to make all the routine plays and stay on their toes. Oklahoma is going to push the envelope on the base paths. They also need to make Bennett work and get him out of the game. I don't think Oklahoma can win the regional with their pitching staff but unfortunately they have 2 horses that could get them a win against the Flames if the attach isn't disciplined. If Liberty is going to win the regional without the services of Garrett Horn, tomorrow is a must win game.
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