What in the wild, wild world of sports is going on in the NCAA regionals?

Blazing Saddles got it right with the immortal words of Slim Pickens, who said, “What in the wild, wild, world of sports is a going on here?” If you were watching the NCAA regionals then you saw a brand of baseball that more resembled an open USSSA softball tournament. The overall No. 1 seed, UCLA, lost its first game, a feat never done before and then didn’t make it out of the Los Angeles regional. Florida scored 11 runs and lost to Troy with opening day ace and future first round draft pick Liam Peterson on the mound. That forced a winner-take-all game on Monday. Four seeded teams lost on the first day.

I don’t know if the pitching is just that bad this year or the hitters have been taking lessons from Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa or some other legendary slugger but the offensive numbers have been staggering. Going into Monday’s games, there have been 1382 runs scored over the weekend. That’s an average of 14 per game! That’s each side scoring two touchdowns and extra points!

On Friday, the winners scored a total of 300 runs or an average of 9.7 per game. The losers averaged 3.6 runs or a total of 112. There was only 1 shutout and only four games where the loser scored only 1 run. Coastal Carolina scored 10 runs and lost to Northern Illinois! Some of those games may be a result of the No. 1 seeds not throwing their aces against the No. 4 seeds, and maybe the No. 4 seeds doing the same.

However, that wouldn’t be the case on Saturday when it’s best arms against best arms and teams fighting to stay in the field. So Saturday, there were a total of 33 games played. The winners scored 341 runs or just over 10 runs per game. The losers scored 146 runs or an average of 4.4 per game. That’s a total of 487 runs! 15 of those games featured winning teams scoring more than 10 runs. Gator fans know Miami scored 10 runs to lose because they gave up 22 to the Gators. Southern Miss, the #9 seed, scored 11 runs and lost to Virginia by 4 to be bounced from the tournament!

So, Sunday had to have better pitching, right? Well maybe. The average for the winning teams dropped to only 10 runs per game! But the losing teams scored an average of 4.7 runs per game or the highest of the weekend! 483 runs were scored on Sunday by all the teams in 31 games played. That’s an average of 15 runs per game. St. John’s scored 21 in Tallahassee. Mississippi State scored 19 against Louisiana. And we know that Troy scored 16 against the Gators. There were 15 teams that scored double digits and won and two that scored double digits and lost!

If you are a fan of offense, you loved this weekend. If you loved to see good pitching, you had to look elsewhere for the most part. I don’t know if the umpires were a factor in the games because the NCAA wanted a smaller strike zone like it did in softball, which jacked up offensive stats there, because I didn’t see every game. Or maybe it is just that the bats have gotten better, or the players have gotten stronger, but the results speak for themselves. Pitchers across the board this weekend got lit up. Balls were flying out of parks like it was a slow pitch softball tournament. Whatever caused it, it was an exciting and chaotic weekend of baseball.