BARB’s 2011 campaign has seen multiple extra-inning affairs, including some 15- and 16-inning games. The last day of May, however, featured two contests with free baseball—and both lasted longer than any other game this season. Read on to find out if one set a league record for innings played.
Sin City got off to an early lead in Worcester as Colby Rasmus reached on an error, was balked to second base by Ted Lilly, and came home on Nelson Cruz’s single in the first. Worcester answered, however, with Delmon Young singling in Carl Crawford.
Single runs scored for Worcester in the third and Sin City in the fourth and fifth, and it stayed 3-2 into the bottom of the seventh inning.
That’s when Worcester seemingly broke the game open (relatively speaking) with three runs off Jaime Garcia. Lastings Milledge tied the game with a double to score Mike Morse and move Grady Sizemore to third base. Billy Butler then punched one up the middle to score both Sizemore and Milledge, and the two-run lead seemed secure in the hands of the Eliminator bullpen.
Rasmus actually led off the eighth with a triple off of Lilly, who was then pulled for ace setup man Heath Bell. Bell struggled, allowing a Nelson Cruz double and walking Jason Bay. The next two hitters, Gaby Sanchez and Gordon Beckham, both hit the ball in the air to move Cruz to third and across the plate for the tying run.
From the ninth to the 12th, the only semblance of a threat from either side was a first-and-second, two-out situation for Worcester in the bottom of the 11th. Butler flew out to left, though, and the game continued.
Sin City took a brief lead in the top of the 13th. Beckham and Kurt Suzuki singled, with the former moving to third on the second hit. Jorge Posada hit the ball to first. Mark Teixeira threw home, but Beckham slid under the tag to put the Cowboys ahead.
Jeremy Affeldt, who entered in the bottom of the 12th, had the task of closing the game out. Mike Morse had other ideas. The right-handed batter took the platoon advantage against the lefty Affeldt, and an 0-1 pitch was deposited over the left field fence to tie it up again.
The top of the 15th saw Sanchez and Beckham lead off with base hits. After a strikeout, Posada singled up the middle. That easily scored Sanchez, and when Sizemore misplayed the ball Beckham scored all the way from first for an 8-6 lead.
Beckham had a part in the bottom of the inning, but not in a good way. The very first offering from Carlos Villanueva was grounded to third by Robinson Cano. Beckham fired to first, but the skip got by the bag and Cano reached second base. Second baseman Ian Kinsler, in his first Sin City game, muffed Delmon Young’s grounder to put runners on first and third with no one out. Worcester appeared to have a great chance to win. A Chris Johnson single drove in Cano, and More dribbled one slow enough to reach and load the bases with no outs. Russell Martin did his job, tying the game on a sac fly. The bases were loaded again when Sizemore was walked, but Derek Lowe came on in relief and induced two ground ball force plays to end the inning.
Not much happened in the 16th, 17th and top of the 18th. Lowe struck out Sizemore and popped up Milledge to open the bottom of the 18th. Butler, however, doubled to the left-center gap and moved to third on a Teixeira single.
Cano stepped up for his second time against Lowe and decided he had had enough. The first pitch was scorched into shallow left. Butler scored easily, and Worcester had a 9-8, 18-inning win, the longest game in the 2011 BARB season…
…BUT NOT FOR LONG
AC/BC traveled to The Monastery to play the St. Francis Friars and got on the board first. Jeff Francouer grounded out to shortstop with one out, scoring Placido Polanco.
St. Francis starter Kevin Correia helped himself by lining a single to right field to lead off the third, and after a strikeout and Clayton Kershaw wild pitch, Kevin Youkilis brought in the run with a double to the wall in right.
Correia was put in line for the win when “Youk” tripled into the right field corner in the sixth and was brought home on Paul Konerko’s sacrifice fly, and the score stayed 2-1 into the ninth inning.
But St. Francis closer Francisco Cordero couldn’t shut down Alex Coffman’s Baseball Club. In fact, he didn’t get an out. David Ortiz drew a nine-pitch walk and was pinch-run for by Peter Bourjos. Bourjos used his speed and stole second base, and Polanco scored him easily on a single up the middle. Leo Nunez was brought in and got the three outs, but the damage was done. Despite a runner reaching base in the bottom of the ninth, the game went extras tied at two.
AC/BC had a good chance to score in the 11th, when Polanco singled in front of a James Loney double. Polanco was held at third, however, and he was stranded as Francouer flied out.
Innings continued to pass without a run. Another AC/BC runner reached third in the 14th, but a fly out ended that threat as well. Neil Walker doubled to left-center for the home squad in the 17th, but he was left on the bases.
Finally, a full extra game passed as the 18th went and the game was still 2-2. League officials began searching the record books, and they discovered that the longest game on record was an August 14, 2009 contest between the Yuma Firebirds and Fresno Regulators. That game went 23 innings and was won by the Firebirds with a two-run shot by Joey Votto.
In the 20th, Mark Trumbo and Polanco hit back-to-back singles. Roy Oswalt, the third starting pitcher to come on in relief for St. Francis, induced a force out, fly out and ground out to end the threat.
The Friars also mounted a charge in the 20th. Neil Walker led off with a triple, and it appeared the game would (mercifully) end soon. Chris Young and Youkilis were walked intentionally to load the bases and set up a force play.
Somehow, Mike Scioscia’s strategy worked. Shin-Soo Choo grounded into a 6-2-3 double play and Konerko grounded out to short, sending the affair to the 21st.
Neither team scored in the 21st, and AC/BC’s only 22nd-inning runner was Polanco, who finished the day 6-for-9. Jonathan Sanchez pitched the 21st for the visitors and came back out for the 22nd. He got a quick fly out from Alexei Ramirez, but Walker beat out a slow chopper to short. Zack Greinke was brought in to face Young.
Greinke must have been groggy from his nap in the middle of the game, because after stealing a strike he left a curveball at the belt.
GOODBYE!!!
Young didn’t miss the hanging breaking ball. It soared into the St. Francis night and disappeared into the empty left-field seats. The few fans still left in the ballpark cheered or scrambled for the souvenir. Young rounded the bases and was mobbed by the team at home plate. The Friars had taken the game, 4-2. It didn’t quite reach the 23-inning record, but no one in the park was disappointed that they didn’t have to spend another inning-plus just to see history.
In other BARB action:
FROSTBITE FALLS 12, NEW ENGLAND 11
WP: Felix Hernandez (6-2, 3.39)
LP: Tim Stauffer (4-5, 3.52)
“King Felix” was staked to an 8-3 lead after six, but he was knocked out by the Yankee Stompers offense in the seventh as the hosts pulled within one run. Frostbite Falls scored four in the top of the ninth to build a comfortable lead, and it turned out they would need it. New England benefitted from two errors to score four times in their half of the last inning and had the tying run on third with one out before Andrew Bailey, just activated off the DL, finished the game off with a strikeout and groundout.
CENTRAL CA 3, BROOKLYN 2
WP: Dan Wheeler (2-3, 6.45)
LP: Neftali Feliz (4-3, 4.34)
Eight masterful shutout innings from Justin Masterson (four hits, zero walks, seven K’s) were undone by one shot off the bat of Danny Espinosa. The Brooklyn win seemed in hand with Feliz on in the ninth, but he walked two while getting two outs before Espinosa teed off on a 1-0, get-it-in fastball. Adrian Beltre drove in both runs for the Moabs with sacrifice flies in the first and sixth innings.
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