You Call It Boring, I Call It Awesome: Rockies Defeat Padres 2-1 in 22 Innings

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.