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Lefty Tyler Alexander will take the bump for TCU tonight, hoping to help the Frogs bounce back from their Sunday afternoon meltdown. The Frogs, who lost their third and fourth games of the year to OSU, have now lost four games on the season. In each of the four losses, TCU has allowed four runs. Alexander will look to keep his team away from that unlucky number when he faces a Sooner team that is 17-9 on the season, averaging .280 at the plate and scoring almost six runs a game. Alexander has struggled some this season - he is just 1-1 with a 3.48 ERA and is allowing opponents to hit .274 against him. He will need to keep his pitch count low and help a bullpen that saw a lot of action this weekend recover ahead of the Frog's weekend series against Wichita State.
OU will counter with Jeffrey Curran, who despite having started four games, has yet to record a decision. He has only allowed 10 runs in 23 innings, and has struck out 18 batters in the season. OU will look to do some damage with two outs, where TCU surrendered 13 of the 18 runs scored on them over the weekend. The Frogs will also cause some problems for the pitchers once they are on the base paths - TCU leads the Big 12 in steals with 43, and went 13-14 over the weekend.
The Sooners have five players in the lineup that batter over .300, and have nearly doubled the home run production of TCU (23-12). Though OU is unranked, they are coming off of a 2-1 series victory over a ranked Texas Tech squad. This is the 97th meeting between the two teams, and Oklahoma holds a sizable series advantage, having won 67 of the matchups. OU is also a rare team to having a winning record at Lupton, at 7-6.
The game will be televised on FSSW+ at 6:30pm, and we will be talking about it right here all game long (there's no basketball for me to turn to, so let's hope it goes better than Sunday).