Arkansas' Gage Wood captivated the baseball world on Monday as he chased history in the College World Series. The Razorbacks pitcher was perfect through seven and took his no-hitter into the ninth inning. Along the way, he tallied well more than a dozen strikeouts, breaking the record for a nine-inning CWS game.
The historic performance puts Wood in the record books with 19 strikeouts in just nine innings.
What's the most strikeouts a pitcher has achieved in a CWS game?
Arizona State's Ed Bane set the mark for a nine-inning game in 1972 with 17 strikeouts. He was matched in 2023 by LSU's Ty Floyd.
Wood's 19 breaks the record by two. He faced 28 at-bats, 67 percent of them resulted in a strikeout.
However, Bane and Floyd didn't hold the absolute record and Wood didn't have a chance to contend for it either. In 1965, Steve Arlin of Ohio State notched 20 strikeouts in 15 innings.
Had Wood gotten to face another batter, it's easy to imagine he might have managed even that. He was on fire on Monday and it's sure to improve his MLB Draft stock by leaps and bounds.
How Gage Wood racked up 19 strikeouts
Strikeouts by inning
- Mercer (1) and Garner (2) swinging
- Decker (3) looking
- Tauken (4), Jury (5), Cunningham (6) all swinging
- Hogart (7) and Mercer (8) swinging, Garner (9) looking
- Decker (10) and Vierling (11) looking
- Jury (12) and Cunningham (13) swinging
- Hogart (14) swinging
- Vierling (15) overturned HBP and Tauken (16) swinging
- Bermeo (17 looking, Cunningham (18) and Hogart (19) swinging
Despite losing his perfect game to start the eight inning, Wood didn't slip. His final out of the eighth inning was his 16th strikeout. That was just one shy of the record for a nine-inning game in the CWS. He went on to tie the record in the ninth after a HBP was overturned on review. The next batter, Will Vierling, went down swinging to officially break the record.
And he added one more for good measure as he closed out the epic no-hitter with a strikeout of Dan Tauken.
How many no-hitters have there been in the CWS?
Wood's no-hitter was the third in the history of the College World Series. He was tantalizingly close to becoming the first pitcher in CWS history to throw a perfect game. He hit one batter in the eighth inning to lose that bid.
His performance demonstrated why Arkansas is the favorite to lift the trophy when all is said and done. That's the only win that could top the celebrations on Monday.