6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: Where No Rocky <i>Or</i> Padre Has Gone Before: Rockies 2, Padres 1 (22 Innings)

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Friday, April 18, 2008

Where No Rocky Or Padre Has Gone Before: Rockies 2, Padres 1 (22 Innings)

This is just mind-bending... both teams scored a single run in their respective halves of the 14th, and they're running out of pitchers (13 used combined, six by the Rocks and five by the Pads). They're going into the top of the 19th in San Diego in front of largely empty stands, setting a Colorado franchise record for longest game by innings, though apparently it was (through 16) the fastest game of such length ever to be played in franchise history. (The Extra Innings feed was, for whatever reason, the road [Rockies] team's).

For the record, the longest game the Padres have ever been involved in was 21 innings, played on May 21, 1977 in Montreal (Padres won, 11-8, on Merv Rettenmund's three-run jack) and on September 24, 1971 (sadly, one of Retrosheet's most wanted games, so no play-by-play data) against Houston. The 1971 game was particularly brutal, as it was the first game of a doubleheader.

Update: And it is finally over, not long after I went to bed (but couldn't stop myself from watching the 21st inning); Troy Tulowitzki doubled in the winning run in the top of the 22nd, and Kip Wells, on his fourth inning of relief, made it stand up. Ye gods, what a marathon, and a record-breaker for both clubs at 22 innings. It was also the longest major league game since an August 31, 1993 contest between the Indians and Twins, which Minnesota eventually won 5-4.

Other fun stuff:

The longest game in the Retrosheet era is a 25-inning marathon on September 10, 1974, with the visiting Cardinals beating the Mets 4-3.
Colorado leadoff man Willy Taveras was 3-for-10, which represented a franchise high for a single game.
Similarly, the team's collective 20 strikeouts was also a franchise high; San Diego's starter was Jake Peavy, and eleven of their whiffs came against him.
Rockies reliever Ryan Speier (who had pitched four innings prior to this game) tossed five in this one alone.
Speier was among the eight pitchers used by Colorado in this game; Clint Hurdle utterly depleted his bullpen, and now with the team playing Houston tonight, the team may resort to using a position player to pitch if scheduled starter Franklin Morales doesn't go five innings.
A total of 658 pitches were thrown by both sides. (The AP says 659.)
The 13 consecutive scoreless frames was the longest such streak in the majors since a July 20, 2004 game between the A's and Blue Jays, ultimately lost by Justin Speier in the 14th.
Starting catchers Josh Bard and Yorvit Torrealba caught every pitch. Yikes.