Cowboy Lefty Named Big 12 Pitcher Of The Week

Oklahoma State's Michael Freeman is the Big 12 Conference Pitcher of the Week for games played Feb. 23-March 1, it was announced by the league office today.

Freeman had a career day for OSU to pitch the 10th-ranked Cowboys to a 5-0 win over Western Illinois last Sunday in Auburn, Ala. The senior southpaw worked eight innings and racked up 10 strikeouts, both career highs, to improve to 2-0 on the season.

The 6-foot-8, 235 pound Freeman was dominant throughout and literally unhittable for much of the contest. After WIU's leadoff hitter reached on an error to open the game, Freeman retired the next 23 batters in a row, and he struck out two batters in the second, fourth, fifth and sixth innings.

WIU finally broke up Freeman's no-hit bid with two outs in the eighth inning on a slow dribbler down the third base line that Freeman fielded but was unable to get the out at first. The Leathernecks' only other hit of the game was a single up the middle by the next batter.

In his eight scoreless innings, Freeman did not issue a walk and faced just two batters over the minimum. He threw 113 pitches, 78 of those for strikes.

Freeman's previous career long outing was five innings, while he also topped his previous best of seven strikeouts.

Oklahoma State has now had a player honored with a conference weekly award each of the three weeks of the 2015 season. Kevin Bradley was the Big 12 Newcomer of the Week on Feb. 16, while Jon Littell picked up Co-Big 12 Newcomer of the Week accolades on Feb. 23.