Garrett Williams, Offense Shine In OSU Rout Of Alcorn State

The Oklahoma State Cowboys decided that beating Alcorn State Braves 13-0 and holding them to one hit on Tuesday wasn't good enough, so it went out and beat them 21-0 on two hits on Wednesday.

LHP Garrett Williams got the start for the Cowboys and pitched incredibly. In his first start of the 2015 season, Williams did not allow the first hit of the game until the fourth inning, one of two that he gave up.

Williams showed great poise and control on the mound, striking out 12 Alcorn State hitters, while only surrendering one walk. The sophomore effectively used his fastball early in the count to get ahead of hitters and then put them away with a sharp breaking ball that he consistently got hitters to miss.

William's line: 6 IP, 2 H, 12 K, 1 BB on 89 pitches.

Had the Cowboys offense not been so potent, I think coach Holliday would have stretched Williams longer into the game. Nonetheless, this is exactly the kind of outing OSU needs from its starters in these midweek matchups against weaker opponents.

Offensively, the Cowboys put on a clinic today, scoring in every inning of the game, including a breakout fifth inning where seven runs were scored. That's exactly what I want when I talk about offensive consistency.

Conor Costello had a grand slam followed by an inside-the-park home run from Kevin Bradley in the fifth and Andrew Rosa also added a longball in the seventh inning giving OSU its first multi-home run game as a team this season.

The Cowboys made Alcorn State's starter Jonathan Morales' day a living nightmare. Morales, who's fastball topped out at 65 MPH, (yes, you're reading that correctly) was responsible for allowing 10 earned runs in this game.

Every Cowboy starter in this game recorded a hit and every player with a plate appearance reached base in the game. The Cowboys recorded an incredible 21 runs, 18 hits, 13 walks and were hit by two pitches. Remember, this was against Alcorn State, but still relatively impressive.

The OSU football team could not even score 21 points in a four game stretch during the middle of the season, sorry to bring that back up.

I have been critical of the offense so far this year, so it was nice to see the team go out and score 34 runs in these two games. That should help this offense get its confidence back after a rough weekend against Illinois.

As good as the offense was, I have to praise the pitching staff as well. Costello started Tuesday's game against the Braves and only gave up one hit over five innings, compared to Williams' two hits over six innings. The bullpen also managed to throw seven hitless innings in the two-game series.

Overall, this series was a great way for the team to build its confidence and provide some momentum going into this weekend's three-game home series against Grand Canyon.