Mizzou Baseball Game Day: Oklahoma State Cowboys

■ The numbers (BoydsWorld.com):

• Record: MU 13-16; OSU 21-8

• RPI: MU 109th; OSU 42nd

• ISR: MU 143rd; OSU 29th

• Strength of Schedule: MU 62nd; OSU 94th

■ The Cowboys have been up and down, unpredictable in their Ws and Ls. In the Big 12, OSU has lost 2 out of 3 to Kansas, won 2 out of 3 against Texas, and last week won 2 out of 3 against Nebraska, and lost a mid-week "non-conference" game against Oklahoma this week.

■ Trrip Note: It astounds me every season to see how poorly OSU Baseball is covered by their local media. You would think there would be more of a college baseball fan base and tradition in Stillwater. OSU won 16 consecutive conference championships under head coach Gary Ward in the Big 8 Conference. During that time, Pete Incaviglia was named Baseball America's Player of the Century, and Robin Ventura was inducted in the inaugural class into the College Baseball Hall of Fame. Overall, OSU has made 19 College World Series appearances, including seven straight from 1981–1987. And both their local Stillwater paper and the Oklahoma City media seem to barely notice the Cowboys have a baseball team.

■ CollegeBaseballDaily Mid-Season Al Big 12 Team includes two Oklahoma Sate Cowboys: Catcher Dane Phillips and 1B Zach Johnson

■ Dillon Overton lifts OU to bedlam baseball win (NEWSOK.com, April 6)

The Cowboys (21-8) entered Tuesday as one of the hottest teams in the Big 12, coming off back-to-back conference series victories over Texas and Nebraska. But thanks to a couple of timely double plays, and Overton’s command of the strike zone, OSU failed to score after that inning despite banging out 12 hits.

“Obviously, he came in and stabilized things for them because we had swung the bat pretty well,” said coach Frank Anderson, whose Cowboys get another crack at OU in a little over a week in the rivals’ regular three-game conference series, which begins April 15 in Tulsa, and finishes April 16 and 17 in Oklahoma City.

■ CBD Quick Hits for March 25th (collegebaseballdaily.com)

It took 15 innings before Texas freshman Mark Payton stole home to give the Longhorns a 1-0 lead over Oklahoma State. The game was dominated by both pitching staffs, seeing a total of 33 strikeouts, 21 from a pair of Cowboy pitchers. Chris Marlowe was fantastic in relief of Cowboy start Mike Strong. The junior college transfer picked up 12 strikeouts over 6.2 innings of relief work. Taylor Jungmann threw nine scoreless innings for the Longhorns, extending his scoreless innings streak to 25.

■ Big 12 Impact Freshmen (CBD)

P Jason Hursh – Oklahoma State: Hursh has yet to appear in many games for the Cowboys, but he has put up good numbers when he has taken the mound. Through 11.2 innings, the righty from Dallas, Texas has allowed only two runs. His strikeout numbers aren’t the greatest, but a 1.54 ERA makes up for that. Hursh was highly recruited out of high school, picking up offers from nearly every school in Texas before passing up the Pirates in the sixth round of the draft.

■ And finally, be glad this is an away weekend.

@BlumbergOTB on Twitter: Strait, McEntire, Womack concert at #Mizzou Arena Friday. Reactor lot parking/shuttles at 5pm. MU expecting largest crowd ever.