Florida's Langford goes 5-for-5, slugs towering HR in MCWS Finals

Florida needed a big effort to stay alive in the College World Series Finals. Wyatt Langford was eager to answer the call.

MLB’s No. 3 Draft prospect played a big part in the Gators’ historic 24-4 rout of LSU in Game 2 on Sunday in Omaha, Neb., going a perfect 5-for-5 with four runs scored, six RBIs and the second-longest home run in Charles Schwab Field history, second only to the 456-foot dinger he hit on June 16.

The five hits and six RBIs are collegiate bests for Langford, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. So much of the attention has surrounded the pitcher’s mound lately -- no team in this year’s College World Series had scored more than six runs before Sunday.

Florida firmly broke that trend by scoring the most runs in CWS history to force a deciding Game 3 for the College World Series crown.

Langford drew a walk in his first trip to the plate for the Gators, but LSU was up 3-1 after two frames. That was about to change in the third. Batting second in the frame, Langford smacked his second hit of the day to put two on with nobody out, and he promptly came around to score two batters later as the Gators put up a six-spot to take a lead they would never relinquish.

The 21-year-old singled again in the fourth before firmly breaking the game open in the sixth. Florida was enjoying an 8-3 lead, but this is college baseball, so eight runs simply wasn’t enough to feel safe. With one resounding swing of his bat, Langford took advantage of a two-on, no-out situation with a towering three-run tank that soared 449 feet and 114.4 mph off the bat.

The dinger was Langford’s 20th on the year, giving him back-to-back 20-homer seasons after he led the SEC with 26 long balls in 2022. After the five-run sixth frame put the Gators up 13-3, they plated 11 more runs over the next three innings to make college baseball history.

The 6-foot-1 slugger capped off his memorable day with run-scoring doubles in each of his next two at-bats, cementing his first-ever six-RBI game. With the exception of his second single that bounced to second base, all of his hits went to the left side of the diamond.

Perhaps the best power hitter in the 2023 Draft class, Langford boasts a pair of tools graded at 60 or higher and has serious five-tool potential, with none of his attributes graded below 50. The outfielder boasts a .373/.498/.777 slash line on the season -- that’s a 1.275 OPS in 63 games.

Game 3 will kick off Monday night at 7 p.m. ET, and this one is for all the marbles. So how are Langford and his teammates preparing for it? With the utmost confidence, of course.

“It doesn’t matter who they pitch,” Langford said in a postgame press conference. “We’re going to be ready.”