Alabama baseball was unable to get anything going at the plate in the first game of the College World Series, falling to Oklahoma 9-0 and dropping into the loser’s bracket.
Crimson Tide ace Tyler Fay did not have the homecoming that he wanted on Saturday. Fay grew up in Doniphan, Neb., just a couple of hours from Charles Schwab Field in Omaha.
The Sooners came into the game as one of the hottest hitting teams in the nation, and Alabama was unable to cool them down. Oklahoma put nine runs on the board on 11 hits.
Oklahoma jumped on the board first with a two-run double to take an early 2-0 lead, and that was all the run support that starting pitcher Cord Rager would need. Rager cruised to victory, pitching seven shutout innings, allowing just three hits while striking out eight.
The Oklahoma offense added a run in the third inning and two in the sixth off Alabama starter Fay. In the eighth inning, the Sooners tacked on four more runs to put an exclamation mark on their victory.
Fay did not have his best stuff on the mound and, as a result, was handed the loss. After the first inning, Fay did settle down, but he finished with a disappointing five runs allowed on six hits across six innings of work.
Alabama’s offense was held scoreless and was only able to record five hits on the afternoon. It wasn’t until the fifth inning that the Crimson Tide recorded their first hit of the game on a John Lemm single to center field. All five hits were singles, and no Alabama hitter had more than one hit on the day.
Alabama will face the loser of the game between No. 3 Georgia and No. 6 Texas on Monday at 2 p.m. The game will air on ESPN.
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