Oklahoma freshman pitcher Xander Mercurius just gave baseball fans in Georgia flashbacks to MLB great Greg Maddux, who pitched for the Atlanta Braves for 11 seasons during his Hall of Fame career, but this time it was their own in-state team getting carved up.
Mercurius mostly shut down what's considered the most dangerous lineup in college baseball in the Sooners' 4-3 win over No. 3 national seed Georgia on Monday night in the Men's College World Series. The victory bumped OU to 2-0 in the MCWS to not only put the Sooners in the driver's seat to make the championship series with one more win, but also put them in a dream position thanks to another seven-plus inning outing from a starting pitcher.
Xander Mercurius was MLB-caliber as Sooners get dream CWS position
One performance in Omaha, no matter how grand the stage, is not to say Mercurius will go on to have a comparable career to Maddux that included four Cy Young Awards, a World Series title, eight All-Star appearances and having his No. 31 retired by the Braves and Chicago Cubs. However, the way he went about dicing up such a potent lineup, especially as an undersized pitcher on the mound, was definitely reminiscent of Maddux and set him up to win a championship of his own. It also revealed that a successful MLB career is likely in Mercurius' future.
A guy who has touched 99 miles per hour on the radar gun, Mercurius took some juice off his fastball while making just the fourth start of his career after being used out of the bullpen most of the season until recently. That fastball is still Mercurius' most valuable asset, but he managed to mix in offspeed pitches at the perfect times to blow his fastball past Georgia hitters inning after inning despite sitting in the lower to mid-90s instead. Maddux, too, was known for dotting corners and using his offspeed to elevate his fastball.
Read more: Brent Venables has Oklahoma baseball fired up to take on the CWS after electric speech
That approach led Mercurius to toss a career-long 7.1 innings and still be in the 90s the whole way while taking on a Georgia lineup that leads college baseball with 175 home runs this season. The Bulldogs still managed to take Mercurius deep three times to show off that power, but all were solo shots as he limited damage by keeping runners off the bases.
Mercurius ultimately finished with a career-high nine strikeouts compared to two walks while giving up three runs on six hits in 7.1 innings. Jackson Cleveland then finished the last 1.2 innings to secure the win and notch his ninth save of the season. It was also Mercurius' first career win on the mound at the perfect time.
Add us as a preferred source on Google