The Sooners shutdown #9 Arkansas 4-0 on Tuesday night
After being swept last weekend in College Station the Oklahoma Sooners have once again made changes to the order of their weekend pitching staff. Dillon Overton moves back into the Friday night starting spot, Jonathan Gray will throw the second game on Friday night and the starting pitcher for the series finale on Sunday is still to be announced.
Because of the treat of inclement weather on Saturday evening the teams have agreed to play a double-header on Friday night and then finish off the series after the storm threat is gone. Missouri returns 15 players from last year's team that finished 11-15 in Big XII conference play and 27-32 overall.
They will throw lefty Rob Zastryzny against Overton in the first game on Friday night. Overton lost his first game of the season last weekend against A&M to drop to a 4-1 record with a 3.86 ERA. Zastryzny is 2-2 on the season and is sporting a 5.56 ERA. In Friday's second game the Tigers will throw lefty Blake Holavach against Gray. Holavach is 3-2 on the season with a 4.03 ERA while Gray's record is 2-4 with a 5.56 ERA. Neither team has announced a starter for game three.
The good news for Oklahoma is that the team ERA improved to 4.34 which places the at sixth in the conference. On the other side of that though the Sooners dropped to eighth in the Big XII in team batting average at .271. The Tigers are seventh in team ERA at 4.47 and sixth in team batting average at .278.
Dane Opel leads Mizzou in batting average at .327 but its Blake Brown who is pacing the team with seven home runs and 25 RBIs. For Oklahoma they are led in batting by Erik Ross and Max White who are both hitting .323. Freshman Hunter Lockwood continues to lead the Sooners in home runs (8) and RBIs (28).
Friday's first game is set for a 3:00 start with the second to follow around thirty minutes after it ends. If they are able to play the two teams will finish the series at 6:30 on Saturday evening. If that's not possible then the series will conclude on Sunday.