I have just finished watching a 19 inning marathon between the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Angels.
The Angels won 5-4 on a solo HR by Albert Pujols off Brandon Workman who had just come into the game.
But it nearly didn’t end there. Red Sox manager John Farrell asked the umpires to review the call as it appeared a fan might have reached over the fence for the ball. However, the umpires upheld the call and the game was over at long last.
I had a weird feeling this would happen. Back in 2000, I watched a 19 inning marathon between the Red Sox and Seattle Mariners. I remember Jeff Fassero being brought in the bottom of the 19th and he promptly surrendered a walk off HR to Mike Cameron. The Mariners also won that game 5-4.
This is actually the third 19 inning game I’ve watched from start to finish. In 2011, the Philadelphia Phillies and Cincinnati Reds went 19 innings before the Phillies won by a score of, you guessed it, 5-4. Infielder Wilson Valdez earned the win.
For the first six innings the story of the game was Angels starter Garrett Richards who had not given up a hit and had a 2-0 lead on a first inning double by Albert Pujols. But the Red Sox got three straight hits in the seventh and then Erick Aybar and Howie Kendrick committed back to back errors. A Xander Bogaerts sacrifice fly gave them a 3-2 lead.
Mike Trout tied in the 8th with a solo shot and it stayed that way until the 14th. While David Ortiz was batting, Dustin Pedroia stole second and then stole third a no one was covering the bag because of the shift on Big Papi. Pedroia scored on a sac fly by Ortiz to give the Sox a 4-3 lead. But the Angels loaded the bases in the bottom of the 14th and scored a run when Pedroia tried to throw out Chris Iannetta at home on a fielder’s choice by Trout.
After his first inning double, Pujols went hitless in seven straight at bats before going deep in the 19th.
Now I must go deep asleep.
A perverse part of me wants to watch a 20 inning ballgame, but not right now.
UPDATE: Another day, another 19 inning game. This time it was between the Detroit Tigers and the Toronto Blue Jays. The Jays won 6-5 on a single by Jose Bautista. The Tigers now only have a 1/2 game lead over the Royals in the AL Central while the Jays are only 1 1/2 games out of the AL Wild Card.
No, I didn’t watch this game. I spent the afternoon outdoors at the beach.
