Stanford let ace rack up crazy pitch count in elimination game

Stanford staved off elimination with a win over Texas in the NCAA Super Regional on Sunday night, and it would be an understatement to say they leaned heavily on pitcher Quinn Mathews.

Mathews threw a career-high 156 pitches to lead the Cardinal to an 8-3 win. He had 16 strikeouts — also a career high — in the complete game. The performance helped force a Game 3 against the Longhorns on Monday night, with the winner advancing to the College World Series.

Mathews has now thrown 333 pitches since the tournament began on June 9. The left-hander has thrown at least 100 pitches in 15 of his last 17 starts.

Obviously, those types of numbers would never be seen in Major League Baseball. Stanford coach David Esquer, who has faced some criticism over Mathews’ pitch counts, called Sunday’s start “one of the greatest pitching performances in Stanford postseason history” for the senior.

“We couldn’t drag him off the mound when we wanted to,” Esquer said, via Steve Kroner of the San Francisco Chronicle. “In the dugout, we couldn’t get him to not go back out.”

Stanford pitching coach Thomas Eager paid Mathews a mound visit with two outs in the ninth inning. Mathews turned and walked away as if to say “you’re not taking me out.”