OMAHA–North Carolina has called upon ace righty Alex White with a runner on first and no outs in the eighth. There’s no tomorrow, so you need to do what you have to do in order to win tonight–I get that. But Wooten really was pitching very well; unless he simply had nothing left in the tank, I would have stuck with him as long as he continued to look good, and done everything I could to save White for tomorrow. Maybe this will serve as a bullpen session for White and he’ll be able to come back this weekend, but better to have him at full strength.

White looks great so far–he struck out Blake Dean with an 86 mph split-finger away after setting him up with a 96 mph fastball. These teams have combined to strike out 20 times so far–10 for each team. At least part of the reason for that is the very wide zone of home-plate umpire Bill Speck. Just five of the strikeouts have been called, but the wide zone forces hitters to chase pitches off the plate, as well.

And we’ve got a streaker! After leaping over the left-field fence and frolicking around in right-center, a buck-naked 20-something-year-old, long-haired blonde guy took a knee in shallow center field and appeared to pray for a moment. He stood up, and a security card made a perfect clothesline tackle, then put him in a headlock. As a team of security guards handcuffed the idiot and walked him back toward the third-base line, they forgot to cover up his private parts for about five more seconds. Um, that’s kind of an important detail, fellas . . .

Steve Pivovar from the Omaha World-Herald says this is the first streaker at the CWS since 1974. That’s quite a streak.

NCAA Blog Central.