Baseball: TCU to Play Oklahoma State in Big 12 Championship
After losing its first game of the tournament to in-state rival Oklahoma, the Oklahoma State Cowboys have run the table and will meet the so-far perfect TCU Horned Frogs in the Big 12 Tournament finale. It is the third time the two squads will face each other in the Big 12 Championship; TCU won the first matchup in 2014, while Oklahoma State won in 2021.
On paper, the advantage belongs to TCU because the Horned Frogs only needed three games to advance to the final. On the other hand, the Cowboys have not only played two more games than TCU, but they also played two games on Saturday, while the Frogs played just one. Oklahoma State's path to the final has been longer because the Cowboys lost their first-round matchup, thus having to advance perfectly through the loser's bracket.
Oklahoma State finished the season as the Big 12's second seed, sporting an impressive 41-17 record. In its regular season series against TCU, the Cowboys went 1-2. The Horned Frogs finished as the fourth seed in the Big 12 and have been playing some of the country's best baseball over the last month: TCU is 13-2 in May.
On Saturday, the Horned Frogs only needed two pitchers to get the job done against Kansas State, while the Cowboys used seven total pitchers in their two games against Texas Tech. This benefits the Frogs because the Cowboys' pitching staff can be lethal. Oklahoma State pitchers rank fifth in the Big 12 with a 5.14 ERA and first in the conference in strikeouts with 589. In the same categories, TCU ranks third and sixth, respectively.
Offensively, the Cowboys are elite. In the Big 12, they rank second in batting average, second in hits, first in home runs, second in RBIs, and second in runs. Three of the top-five RBI earners in the Big 12 belong to the Cowboys; again, they are elite.
It won't be easy for Oklahoma State to step in the way of the seemingly-unstoppable Horned Frogs, but the Cowboys are the team that is built to do it. To wrap all of this up, it should be a good one.
The championship will start at 5 pm and will air on ESPN2.
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