OMAHA, Neb. — You are a 19-year-old freshman and you’re sitting in the Florida bullpen in the late innings Sunday night, never dreaming you’ll get into the game. The All-American closer is on the mound and he’ll protect the fragile two-run lead. You’re peacefully watching from afar. Haven’t thrown a baseball in three hours.
Suddenly, you’re being told to grab your glove and warm up, and be quick about it because you’re about to be called in. You have maybe 30 seconds. Seems as if your coach has blundered and put the team into one of the most bizarre predicaments in recent Men’s College World Series memory, and you’re being asked to bail him out. To think, if you hadn’t reclassified to attend college early, you’d have still been pitching in high school this season. Now this.
You get to throw three hurried warmup tosses, maybe four. Then it’s time. You’re walking from the outfield bullpen toward the mound, the place is screaming, the bases are loaded in the eighth inning. The game, so crucial to Florida’s national championship plans, is teetering.
What goes through your mind at such a moment?
Cade Fisher’s words later: “I was just hoping I didn’t blow it.”
Born for this moment.
— Florida Gators Baseball (@GatorsBB)
The Men's College World Series has become a four-alarm fire. Six games have been played, five of them won by a single run, each seemingly more volatile and chaotic at the end than the last. “I think people here in Omaha are getting their money’s worth,” Oral Roberts coach Ryan Folmar was saying.
His team Sunday night, for example, had the first MCWS inside-the-park homer in 22 years, struck out 14 batters, outhit its opponent 11-5, loaded the bases in the eighth and ninth innings... and lost.
But for the most vivid example of the mayhem that’s been going on in Omaha, we should consider Florida. The Gators beat Virginia by one run with their last swing, and then Oral Roberts by one run with their last pitch. “Kind of like thrill seekers towards the last couple of innings,” shortstop Josh Rivera called them. Now they’re 2-0 and a single victory away from the championship finals, never mind they’re 1-for-14 in Omaha with runners in scoring position and their top four hitters are 4-for-33 overall.
But these guys are doing the darndest things. Take Ty Evans. He lost some of his playing time during the regular season. He had three at-bats all the month of May, and no hits. He went nearly two months from mid-April to early June without a single RBI. But his first three at-bats in Omaha, he hit two homers and a double.
Then there was this wow-moment sticky wicket for Fisher Sunday night.
Florida led 5-3 in the eighth, and star closer Brandon Neely was on the job to finish off Oral Roberts. Except he got into trouble in the eighth and coach Kevin O’Sullivan made a mound visit.
Oops.
Seems O’Sullivan didn’t realize Florida had hit its limit of six visits. That meant the pitcher had to be replaced. The relentless Oral Roberts batters were banging at the door with the bases loaded and two out, and O’Sullivan didn’t have a single, solitary soul warming up in the bullpen.
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Not more than a minute later, Fisher was going toward the mound, like a firefighter rushing toward a blaze.
“No one knew what was going on,” Fisher said about that crazy moment in the bullpen. “They just looked at me and said get hot. I got up, put some Biofreeze on my arm and started throwing balls. The adrenaline definitely helped. I hadn’t thrown in like almost three hours.
“Before the first pitch I kind of looked around and everybody was on their feet. I just took a deep breath and tried to focus in on the situation.”
It’s not as if he isn’t capable. He was 6-0 with a 3.21 earned run average and had struck out 41 batters in 42 innings. But this is Omaha. He had pitched in the opening win over Virginia but given up two hits and a run in only a third of an inning. Sunday was not the time to think about that.
He was given a few extra throws on the mound to get loose and his catcher BT Riopelle came out for a word. “He just told me to slow my heart rate down. Take a deep breath and just be the pitcher I’ve always been this season,” Fisher said. His teammates knew Fisher would not tense up and allow his emotions to sway him. Not his style. “He’s pretty much stone cold all the time,” said Jac Caglianone in the locker room later.
And indeed, Fisher later mentioned how “I didn’t really get to think about it, how quick it was.” A good thing? “Not thinking about it? Yeah. Less time to get nervous.”
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One of Oral Roberts’ top hitters, Justin Quinn was waiting at the plate and there was nowhere to put him. In about three minutes Fisher had gone from relaxed spectator to working without a safety net. The count went full, and then Quinn lined out. Oral Roberts loaded the bases again in the ninth and that’s when Fisher glanced toward the outfield fence. “I looked over at the bullpen,” he said. “No one was warming up, so I knew it was me and me only to finish the game.”
The Golden Eagles scored a run in a fielder’s choice but a fly to left ended it. Florida was 2-0. “A little sketchy,” Evans said, “but we got it done.”
Afterward the Florida coach had some pointed things to say about the Florida coach.
“It was totally my mistake and no one feels more terrible about it than I do,” O'Sullivan said of the mound visit. “But at the same time it’s like a player that has a bad game or gives up a run in the ninth or extra innings. You’ve got to move on from it. I apologized to them at the end of the game. They just had my back.
“I’m fairly hard on myself a lot. But when I wake up tomorrow morning, I’m going to get these guys ready to play on Wednesday. That’s the bottom line.”
Gators, 2-0 in Omaha! x
— NCAA Baseball (@NCAABaseball)
There’s the reward for entrance into the winner’s bracket in Omaha: Two days off. The Gators can watch the other teams play these white-knuckle games. Fisher said he was going to the Omaha Zoo. Not even the snake display will be as scary as Sunday night. “I think it shows you the parity of college baseball,” O’Sullivan said about the first three raucous days of the 2023 MCWS. “The eight teams are here for a reason. Not only are you playing really good teams, but really good teams who are playing their best at the end of the year.”
Florida has sometimes been just outside the main spotlight here. Wake Forest has the top ranking, LSU the compelling pitcher whose fastball leaves a vapor trail. Oral Roberts has the charm of the underdog. What could the Gators do to get people talking about them?
And then Kevin O'Sullivan headed for the mound in the eighth inning Sunday night...
