OMAHA, Neb. -- At this rate, the last person capable of making a decent pitch at Rosenblatt Stadium will be Ed McMahon. From Alpo to Publisher's Clearinghouse to ... College World Series?
You are correct, sir. The ultimate pitchman probably has more life in one of his 85-year-old wings than the combined staffs of Fresno State and Georgia at this point in the CWS championship series.
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| Fresno State starter Justin Miller lasts only 2 2/3 innings; he better be ready to chip in Wednesday night. (Getty Images) |
Yahoo for the city's hotels, which might just stay booked clear through next week when the U.S. Olympic swimming trials commence. Boo for student-athlete welfare. It's clear that these two pitching staffs are more tired than Howie Mandel's stand-up act.
"We passed out about four weeks ago," Fresno coach Mike Batesole said.
Actually, six weeks ago, Batesole's bunch was losing back-to-back games to Sacramento State. The Stones haven't been on the road this long (since May 16). Since then, the Bulldogs captured a must-win WAC tournament title to advance to the NCAA postseason, then won a regional and super regional before winning four times in Omaha to get to this moment.
That moment wouldn't have come had Fresno not won five times in postseason elimination games.
A little exhaustion is to be expected in late June, only two months and five days away from the start of the college football season. But there's the little matter of first completing the 2007-08 NCAA athletic calendar. After a combined 29 runs and 34 hits in Game 2, the only certainty is that the last pitcher standing might not have an arm attached to him at the end.
Georgia coach Dave Perno has used 10 of his 12 pitchers these first two games. Batesole's bullpen coughed up a three-run lead Monday and allowed five runs in 6 1/3 innings on Tuesday.
Fresno's Holden Sprague is up for it, regardless. Not only did the junior reliever lie about his father's occupation in the media guide -- Don Sprague is not an astronaut -- he qualified as the pitching star of the night with a grotesque line: 3 1/3 innings, eight hits, three earned runs.
Let's just say Sprague's performance was better than most. Perno used seven pitchers alone on Tuesday just to get through the nearly four-hour game that featured a combined 100 plate appearances.
Sprague faced 18 of those batters and lived to tell about it, which he happily did outside the giddy Fresno dugout. During Sprague's freshman year, the occupations of his parents were mistakenly switched in the media guide.
"My mom was a financial advisor and my dad was a kindergarten teacher," Sprague said. It's actually the other way around.
