On Friday night, Mark Appel had a dreadful fourth inning, leading to a 17-1 loss by Stanford against Florida State. Tonight, Florida State had another huge victory, winning 18-7 against Stanford, this time getting to Brett Mooneyham, who was selected by Washington in the third round of the 2012 draft. The loss eliminates Stanford, ending Appel’s 2012 college season.
The good news is that Appel won’t be subjected to the high pitch counts at Stanford now. He threw 48 pitches in the fourth inning on Friday, and threw 122 pitches in his complete game victory last week. The bad news is that this won’t speed up the Appel negotiations. It’s still unlikely that he will sign before the July 13th deadline, although at least he won’t be facing any more ridiculous pitch counts between now and then.