Almost everything about Louisiana Tech's 6-4 loss to Marshall in Game One of the Conference USA Baseball Tournament in Biloxi was long.
The only game of the day featuring CUSA programs without home parks to play in — we have researchers checking — it was supposed to begin at 9 and started at 9:09. So boo on organizers. Or maybe we should thank them; maybe the late start was a warning.
It's the longest game in time — 4 hours 49 minutes — in CUSA Tournament history, made even longer by the humid 87-degrees it was played in on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in MGM Park.
(MGM stands for "My Glove's Melting.")
The name of the winning pitcher, Robert Kwaitkowski, is long.
The list of pitchers Tech used is long: Miller, Follis, Bailey, Griffen, Fincher, and Smith. "Sounds like a law firm," said Voice of the Bulldogs Dave Nitz.
Levity amid the storm.
The top of the first was long as Matt Miller, whose 1.1 innings of work was his shortest start of the season, walked three and gave up an unearned run on Tech's first error of the day. Seven Herdsmen went to the plate; only one scored.
Que up the ominous music you hear in horror flicks right before somebody gets whacked, because a tone was set. Tech pitchers gave up six runs—but only two earned. Tech's five errors were the most in a single game this season.
Five.
Seven more Marshall players batted in the long top of the second. Miller gave up a double, triple, and sacrifice fly to fall behind 3-0 — Marshall's only two earned runs of the day — before Tyler Follis entered and pitched four scoreless innings to keep the Dogs in it.
I assume after Tech gave up two runs in the top of the 12th and went down 1-2-3 in the bottom to end it, that the faces of the players were long, too.
Can't say for sure. I wasn't there. Listened to Dave, hopefully still weeks away from completing his 44th season as Tech Baseball's Voice, call the game on the radio. (From Biloxi, which, naturally, is a long way from here.)
The Bulldogs had in essence lost the game before the long top of the 12th, but that's when Tech actually ran out of four-leaf clovers, rabbits' feet, chances, and fingers to plug up leaky levees.
Marshall's Raul Cabrera, 0-for-4 with a sacrifice going into the at-bat, reached on a ground ball error to start the inning against Tech closer Braxton Smith, who'd allowed no runs and a single baserunner in each of the ninth, 10th, and 11th innings. (Infield errors produced the baserunners in the ninth and tenth, and Smith walked a batter in the 11th.) Since he was going to be unavailable to work Thursday anyway, Smith had trotted out for the 12th.
A strikeout and fielder's choice should have ended it, but a two-out single by Shane Hanon scored two, increased Hanon's hit streak to 12 games, and gave Marshall a 6-4 lead.
This game was so long it didn't even end when it had ended. The final play, a Tanner Huddleston groundout, was reviewed because of the bang-bang nature of the play at first. Review aaaaand…still out.
At long last, it was over.
It will be lost in the mist of Miller's short start and the five errors, but the Bulldogs battled and nearly pulled it off prior to the fateful 12th. Marshall had a baserunner in every inning but the eighth and stranded a dozen runners, so the Bulldogs wrestled themselves out of holes several times.
Tech threatened often in the game's back half, scoring twice in the seventh and once in the ninth but leaving runners in scoring position to end the ninth (fly ball out), 10th (pop up) and 11th (groundout).
The game looked as if it might turn Tech's way in the top of the seventh. Logan Bailey's relief stint of 0.2 innings ended when he walked the leadoff batter, then Kyle Griffen relieved and walked the first guy he faced. A sacrifice bunt put Herd runners at second and third with one out, and Marshall leading at the time, 4-1.
At this point Tech had given up five walks, eight hits, and two errors. Trending poorly.
Tech coach Lane Burroughs must have saw something he didn't like in the way Luke Edwards fouled off Griffen's first pitch of his at-bat, because the next thing you know — something fast actually happened in this game! — Jonathan Fincher inherited the 1-0 count in relief. In a battle of CUSA Freshmen of the Year Team players, Fincher, last seen giving up the walk-off homer in Tech's final regular-season game Saturday in Miami, showed a fearless resiliency and struck out Edwards swinging. Then he struck out the over-voweled Geordon Blanton looking to end the inning.
And just like that — actually it took a while like everything else and came in the form of a Manny Garcia walk, a Mason Robinson double and a couple of wild pitches — Tech scored twice in the bottom of the seventh and trailed just 4-3. And Fincher struck out the leadoff hitter in the eighth and was backed by solid defensive plays from Huddleston at third and Steele Netterville in left for the Tech defense's first 1-2-3 inning of the game.
Were the clouds parting?
Neg. A double-play ended a Tech threat in the eighth, and three scoring chances remained just that — just chances — as the Bulldogs couldn't get the timely hit in the late innings.
Funny game, baseball is. Miller, named Tuesday to the All-CUSA second team and a former Louisiana Sports Writers Association Pitcher of the Week, pitched seven innings and struck out 10 when he faced the Herd in mid-April. Smith, who was named first-team All-CUSA, took the hard-luck loss. Both those guys will tell you that Tuesday was more fun than Wednesday.
Seeded third, Tech (34-23, 17-13) will play Thursday morning at 9. Sixth-seed Marshall (29-26, 14-15) plays at 4. Maybe. But that's doubtful. No question that everyone remotely connected to the tournament hated both teams for pushing the schedule back a couple of hours, making a long Wednesday even longer. The only start time you can count on Thursday is Tech's.
Not that Marshall's complaining.
So Tech will play May 23, a month to the day of the final game in J.C. Love Field at Pat Patterson Park. Nobody knew that Tuesday night in April that a walk-off homer from Hunter Wells to beat Little Rock 5-4 was the park's swan song, or that the series with Marshall the weekend before would be the final series.
Seems like a long, long time ago.
As we've seen, a lot can happen in a month, or in a tournament, or in a game. So at least in theory, things are still a way, maybe a long way, from being over.
