Texas and Boston College played the longest game in NCAA history Saturday night, with the Longhorns prevailing 3-2 in 25 innings.
While guys like me are worrying about the Stephen Strasburgs of the world throwing 120 pitches in a start, Austin Wood of Texas threw a ridiculous 169 pitches ... out of the bullpen. Seriously.
Wood tossed 13 innings of relief, including 12.1 no-hit frames, and said afterward: “I can’t believe I threw 13 innings. I was tired, but we never doubted that we were going to win that game.” Then his arm disintegrated as reporters looked on.
Texas coach and all-time Division I wins leader Augie Garrido called it “the best pitching performance I have ever seen.” Boston college coach Mik Aoki wasn’t quite as willing to shred his pitchers’ arms, so he only let Mike Belfiore throw 9.2 innings out of the pen.
The seven-hour, three-minute game finally came to an end thanks to Travis Tucker singling in the go-ahead run in his NCAA-record 12th at-bat.
Along with Strasburg losing for the first time and Texas winning in 25 innings, the opening round of the NCAA tournament also saw Florida State jump out to a 32-0 lead over Ohio State on the way to a 37-6 victory.
FSU had 66 total bases on 38 hits, including 15 doubles. As Ohio State coach Bob Todd put it: “Everything they did was right. Everything we did was wrong.” It’s not quite March Madness, but the NCAA baseball tournament has been pretty damn interesting so far.