Slaughter rule! The only thing that went wrong here was West Virginia didn’t finish this game after seven innings and Isaiah Kerns had to throw six more pitches in the top of the eighth. That’s it. Everything else was sublime.

WVU is absolutely in the NCAA tournament now, right? Baylor was No. 19 in this morning’s RPI, a spot above WVU, and the Mountaineers are now 7-6 against the teams above or even with them in the regular-season standings, and the Big 12 is the RPI’s most-revered league. We hadn’t really pored over this, because the body of work seemed good enough, but WVU went 4-8 in Big 12 play at the end of the season and followed four conference series wins with four conference series losses.

But that’s no longer a concern. With a whole lot of swagger, its best starter ready to roll and every other arm available to help, the team moves on to play the winner of No. 1 seed Texas Tech v. No. 8 seed Oklahoma State at 5 p.m. (or so) tomorrow.

Anyhow, this was ideal for WVU, which wasted no time jumping on Baylor’s starting pitcher and chasing him after scoring seven runs in the first inning. It was brutal. Eleven batters, 34 pitches, 17 strikes, and the Mountaineers were patient and aggressive and adept early and late in counts.

This is a tone-setter for a game and for a tournament.

Kerns had never thrown more than 5 2/3 innings, and that was his last start, when he allowed no runs and three hits to Pitt. He was on a different plane Tuesday, allowing the leadoff batter to reach once and giving up just one hit with two outs. He stayed out of trouble and didn’t allow it to get worse.

Up next is B.J. Myers, who had two starts interrupted by weather before cruising along and then finding trouble at Texas last week. He allowed three runs in six innings in a loss at Oklahoma State and allowed one run in four innings in a start against Texas Tech before a rain delay took him out of the game.

Win or lose tomorrow, WVU is playing Friday, and Alek Manoah ordinarily needs a lot of pitches to get to or through the fifth inning. Myers can do 100-plus pitches and maintain his stuff, but he doesn’t have to now. Win or lose tomorrow, WVU is playing on Friday, and what Kerns did was give Myers and Manoah a safety net.

What the offense did won’t hurt, either. Pitching staffs dwindle and relief pitching dips as offense increases as games go along. The Mountaineers started strong while preserving their bullpen, and we can’t overlook what 11 runs achieved. In losing its last four Big 12 series, WVU totaled — totaled — 17, 9, 6 and 10 runs. The Mountaineers only reached double digit runs once in 24 Big 12 games, and the 11 runs were the most scored against a conference team this season. No time like the present, right?