Matt Holliday Excited for Oklahoma State Baseball in 2021
STILLWATER – We’re roughly two weeks away from OSU baseball’s start of the 2021 season at Sam Houston in Huntsville, TX and things are already starting to shape up nicely.
The Cowboys have a trio of players that made the Preseason All-Big 12 Conference team, shortstop/catcher Max Hewitt, second baseman Hueston Morril and utility player Justin Campbell. The Cowboys were also tabbed preseason fourth in the conference behind Texas Tech, TCU and Texas.
Related: Three Cowboys were tabbed Preseason All-Big 12
Josh Holliday and Co. have been lucky the past few weeks as Stillwater has seen some rather nice weather, allowing the Pokes get outside on the field at O’Brate Stadium to see some live batting practice for the hitter, and live hitters for the pitchers.
We got the opportunity to speak with volunteer assistant coach Matt Holliday Wednesday afternoon on Triple Play Sports Radio about the Pokes and how things have gone the past few weeks.
“Having this nice weather the last six or seven days has helped us; we’ve scrimmaged, our pitchers have thrown to live batters, our batters have seen a chance to see our pitchers,” Matt Holliday said on Triple Play Sports Radio. “I think the thing that stands out the most – and usually the pitchers are ahead of the hitters in any situation – is I think our pitchers have really showed well. Bryce Osmond was electric the other day, [Justin] Wrobleski was throwing 95 [MPH]. Our velocity and locations up to this point has been the real star of the first few weeks of playing.”
Freshman pitcher Bryce Osmond saw action in four games in 2020 before the season was cancelled due to COVID-19. He went 16.0 innings and struggled in his first and third game giving up six earned runs, but only gave up three in the second and fourth game.
As for transfer sophomore pitcher Justin Wrobleski, we racked up 27 strikeouts and a 2.89 ERA in 18 2/3 innings last spring for State College of Florida.
This team also has some very talented seniors who bring a lot of leadership and experience to the lineup this season. The five seniors on the team this season are Max Hewitt, Carson McCusker, Cade Cabbiness, C.J. Varela and Alix Garcia.
“I think some of our young hitters are coming along,” said Holliday. “I think it’s going to be a really good team. Very talented and we’ve got a lot of depth. I know a lot of that has to do with the COVID year as we’ve got four or five kids that came back, so we’ve got a lot of good players. We put two teams out there to scrimmage and we had no trouble of getting 16-18 really good players out there, as well as our pitching. It’s always hard to tell before the real games get started and who’s going to respond and how guys are going to react to environments, but as far as watching talent and scrimmages and guys’ will to learn and showing up early and work ethic and wanting to be good, I think it’s a good group and I’m excited.”
Related: Oklahoma State baseball releases 2021 schedule
The Cowboys kick the season off with a three-game road series against Sam Huston on Feb. 19, then return to Stillwater on Feb. 23 as they’ll play their first game in O’Brate Stadium against Little Rock. The three-game home series against Grand Canyon March 5-7 looks to be a really good one, as does the three-game home series against Vanderbilt March 12-14. The Cowboys then kick Big 12 play off against Texas Tech on the road March 19-21 with Big 12 play in O’Brate Stadium kicking off against Kansas State March 26-28.