It was 1:00 AM, and I was tired.
But, being OCD, I decided to get on my computer one last time before going to bed to check the number of hits on my 2008 Mock Draft (hey, I'm gunning for football tickets. Cut me some slack).
So, I open up Firefox and it takes me to my home page, MLB.com. I check out some of the finals, but then notice something odd.
There still was a game going on.
My tired brain could barely wrap itself around the situation. The Colorado Rockies were playing the San Diego Padres, and the game was in the 15th inning.
Okay, that wasn't that hard to comprehend. But the score was.
1-1.
Two runs between these teams. In the 15th inning.
Perhaps the more amazing fact is that the game was scoreless until the 14th, when both teams scored a run in their half of the inning.
If I wasn't so tired, I probably would have stayed up to watch the game.
Thank God I didn't. Eight innings and over two hours after I last checked the score, the Rockies finally pushed across a run and held the Padres scoreless in the bottom of the 22nd to win the game.
At 1:20 AM Pacific time. I would have been up until 3:20 AM Central, and Rockies fans would have had to stay up until 2:20 AM to see their team win.
Actually, if I had stayed up to watch the game, maybe I would have felt the magnitude 5.2 earthquake that hit the Midwest this morning.
But an earthquake hitting the Midwest may not have been the oddest thing to happen on the morning of April 18.
Seriously, three runs in 22 innings?
Let's run down some stats for this game.
Colorado had 73 at-bats in the game, walking eight times for 81 plate appearances. As a team, the Rockies struck out 20 times and left 30 men on base.
Willy Taveras had three hits—but hit .300 for the game, as he had ten at-bats.
Todd Helton went 1-for-9 and Brad Hawpe 0-for-7—numbers that would seem to indicate that both players are in a slump. On the flip side, Matt Holliday had three hits and three walks in his nine plate appearances.
Sixteen different players had a plate appearance in the game, from reliever Justin Speier to pinch-hitter Scott Podsednik.
Whew. And that's just for the Rockies.
The Padres had a paltry 78 plate appearances with five walks and one hit-by-pitch, which made it 72 at-bats.
Jim Edmonds pinch hit for Scott Hairston in the 10th and had five hitless at-bats. Tony Clark went 1-for-8, Brian Giles 1-for-9, and Tadahito Iguchi 0-for-7.
Starting pitcher Randy Wolf pinch-hit in the 13th—and got a hit. 17 players had a plate appearance in the game, including two by eventual losing pitcher Glendon Rusch, who contributed one strikeout to the 17 the Padres had and one LOB to the 24 the team had.
The Rockies used eight pitchers, while the Padres only needed seven. The duel that began between Jeff Francis and Jake Peavy finally culminated with Kip Wells and Rusch on the mound for their respective teams.
The game was the longest in major league baseball since 1993. There were three seventh-inning stretches. The 1,000 fans that stayed for the whole thing deserve some sort of medal.
In no other sport could this happen. And while the casual observer may yawn at a 2-1, 22-inning game, I find it to be absolutely amazing.
Well done, Rockies and Padres.
Well done.
12 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
TJ March about 1 year ago
Agreed, I wish I would have watched that. Amazing.
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Nathaniel Stoltz about 1 year ago
Turned in on in the bottom of the 14th...and it was like I got to see a whole another game. Going even further would've been awesome though. Haha, when Kip Wells and Glendon Rusch are putting 0's up on the board, something crazy is up.
And those fans there were LOUD right til the very end.
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Andrew Palumbo about 1 year ago
Can't believe I missed it... Now I have to wait until somebody puts it online (legally of course). Thank god for the internet.
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JJ Stankevitz about 1 year ago
That sounds like a great idea. Lemme just carve six and a half hours out of my schedule...
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Akoma Rodriguez about 1 year ago
Glad you took the time to write about this. I've heard people harping on how boring and bad it is for MLB games to go this long, but I think it's incredibly exciting. It's that unpredictable part of the game that adds intrigue, what fun would extra innings be if you knew they could only go 15?
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Daniel Weine about 1 year ago
I personally believe I may be one of the only people who can honestly say the following. I watched the entire game, all 22 innings, from the East Coast. If you are wondering why it was mainly due to the fact that I have Jake Peavy and Trevor Hoffman on my fantasy team. After both of them being pulled though I stayed tuned for the fun that ensued. As I was tuned in through MLBTv I watched not only the game, but around the 14th on, after the Padres tied it when it had seemed like the first team to score would win ( guess not), the announcers along with the fans became increasingly loopy, and the game therefore more entertaining. I agree that these games are not boring at all, they are instead in my opinion the best games, because I mean, as a baseball fan, the more baseball the better. I would also like to add that its too bad it didn't get to the point where we saw a position player pitch.
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JJ Stankevitz about 1 year ago
Wow, Daniel, that's awesome.
Oh, and as far as seeing a position player pitch? Shouldn't Glendon Rusch count for that?
Again, bravo, Daniel.
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Derek Coffelt about 1 year ago
The fans are the ones that got the most out of this. Two games for the price of one? You can't beat that. That's what makes baseball one of the best sports in the world, the fact that it takes as long as it takes. There's no time limit, no shot clock, no game clock: it's timeless. That's the way it should be and I applaud that you wrote about this in a positive light. I would have loved to been at this game personally because of how hard these 2 teams were pushing for the win. It was like seeing the one game playoff last year all over again. Great article.
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JJ Stankevitz about 1 year ago
Agreed. It's not stuff like this that makes baseball boring—it's what makes it the best damn game on the face of the planet.
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Max Iascone about 1 year ago
I can't believe I missed that game either, I also can't believe that a couple of stiffs like Wells and Rusch saw extended time and the score was only 2-1... who woulda thought it. That game was one Mark Grace moment away from being quite possibly the most entertaining non-playoff game ever. (if only the inning count had broken 30 like it did in that Paw Sox-Rochester game in the '70s)
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Kyle Zimmerman about 1 year ago
I watched the entire game..I really thought it wasn't going to end ..kind of disappointed that my padres fell to defeat being that i gave up a good 3 hours of sleep hoping to see a victory for the pads
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Greg G. about 1 year ago
I had the good fortune of attending the Diamondbacks vs. Padres game the next afternoon. Showing up was just a formality for the Friars. They just wanted to go to sleep. The D Backs went on to hang 6 runs on Mr. Maddux in the first inning - much to this D Backs fans delight.
Honestly, I kind of felt guilty knowing the boys from San Diego hadn't got to sleep until 3 am at the earliest and had to travel to Phoenix the next morning.
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