Why defense is what OU HC Patty Gasso is watching with Sydney Barker

There is not one person who would say a .300 batting average is bad, but it feels out of place for this OU softball team.

Everybody sees the screenshots at Love’s Field. You have a .500 hitter here, a .450 there. The power numbers. It’s all impressive.

But it could be intimidating. Because on any other team, OU sophomore third baseman Sydney Barker would be thought of as one of the best hitters on that team. She hitting .295 with five home runs and 16 RBIs.

That doesn’t register anywhere near the top in any of those categories for this ridiculous OU offense.

And you know what? Head coach Patty Gasso doesn’t care.

“Barker has been a star for us at third base,” Gasso told SoonerScoop. “Losing Nelly was a big blow to us, but Barker has been that traveling infielder, traveling outfielder. She’ll go and do and play hard wherever I put her. She’s got a third baseman’s mentality.

“It’s kind of that bow up, try to hit it by me kind of attitude, which I love. And I told her this too: ‘Offensively, I don’t care. You are so important to us on defense and filling that role at third. If you hit .100, I don’t care.’”

Barker was thrust into the spotlight after Nelly McEnroe-Marinas tore her ACL earlier this season. No doubt Barker was hoping for a bigger role, but not for it to happen like that.

Her defensive play has been pretty solid, and it is something Gasso wants to highlight. Because, again, when you look at those offensive numbers, you could get in your own head.

“But what’s hard — we all do it — you look at the board and you go, ‘.503, wow! .492, .475, .450,’ and it just goes down,” Gasso said. “There’s a couple .390s and then Syd was hitting like .310, or .300.

“And, I mean, any of us would go, ‘Uh, why am I not hitting .425?’ Who does that? I mean, most teams would be thrilled to just hit .300 as a team. So I need to continue to make sure that she can be free to swing and not feel pressed to try to hit home runs or do things that we don’t need her to do.”

OU will need Barker to be at her best, offensively and defensively, heading to Austin to take on Texas this weekend.

If there is one player that Gasso isn’t worried about getting in her own head, sounds like it is Barker.

That is one of the many reasons why Gasso recruited Barker way back when.

“Yes, she’s made that way. I recruited her for that reason,” Gasso said. “She was always that voice on the field. She was a hustler, hard worker. In travel, there are teams that just don’t hustle. They walk everywhere.

“She was always moving, always talking, and I just loved it, and I wanted it. And I knew she was athletic enough to do a lot of different things on the field defensively. So again, she’s driving in runs. Every once in a while, she’ll hit it out. She’ll drop one in over the infield’s head. Doesn’t matter to me. It really does not. I just want her to be so confident on defense and then just relax on offense.”

McEnroe-Marinas update

For the third straight road series, McEnroe-Marinas will not be with OU. She underwent her surgery, and it has really been about her rehab.

You can still see her in Norman, obviously. But she has not been able to hit the road with the team just yet.

Hopefully, soon, though.

“Right now, she’s just really focusing on her rehab,” Gasso said. “So we’re at practice, she’s doing rehab in the dugout or places where we can see her. I think the progress has been going really well. The pain has subsided some. She’s just sometimes struggling to sleep, which I think everyone in the world is struggling to sleep these days. But she’s working really hard and she’s not gonna travel with us to Texas because just, she’s not there yet.

“But she will be traveling with us, I believe, soon. Just her presence, just looking at her gives this team confidence because she has it. She’s like Barker, just bow up, tough players, and that’s what our team wants and needs to see.”