Vanderbilt leaves Shriners Showdown 1-2 after blowout loss to Oklahoma State
Published:
Vanderbilt had a shockingly awful end to the 2025 season, and now its 2026 campaign isn’t exactly off to a flying start.
The Commodores dropped their final game of the Shriners Showdown in Arlington, Texas, in forgettable fashion, getting destroyed by Oklahoma State, 11-1 in 8 innings on Sunday afternoon. The Cowboys belted a home run that ended the game in an instant by run rule.
The weekend in the Lone Star State started badly, too, with Vanderbilt falling to TCU, 5-4, in Friday’s season opener. The Commodores showed major signs of life on Saturday though, blasting Texas Tech 13-3 in 8 innings to even their record to 1-1. But it all went wrong on Sunday against Oklahoma State, with things coming undone for Vandy in the 5th and 6th innings after the game was scoreless through 4 frames.
Nate Taylor and Alex Kranzler were each charged with 2 runs in the loss, and Jacob Faulkner was charged with 6 runs as the game quickly got out of hand. The pitching wasn’t good and neither was the hitting, with Vandy not getting its first hit of the game until the 7th inning, courtesy of Logan Johnstone’s solo homer that proved to be the Commodores’ only run of the day.
Vanderbilt worked the count, drawing an eye-popping 10 walks, but the Commodores canceled that out by striking out an alarming 13 times. Taylor went 4.1 innings in his Vandy debut after transferring from SEC rival Georgia. He was cruising through those first 4 scoreless innings before getting knocked around in the 5th and exiting soon after.
The Commodores are trying to get it right in 2026 after a 2025 season that ended in crushing fashion, with Vandy becoming the first No. 1 national seed to fail to reach its regional final since the college baseball tournament switched to its current format in 1999.
Vanderbilt will dust itself off and try to rebound back at home on Tuesday against Eastern Michigan, with the teams also playing on Wednesday in the 2-game midweek series.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
