SAN DIEGO — You stay out that late in the Gaslamp Quarter, somebody is going home with regrets.
The Dodgers and San Diego Padres played for 16 innings Wednesday night into Thursday morning. The longest game in baseball’s ‘Free Runner Era’ lasted 5 hours and 49 minutes, featured 489 pitches, 51 at-bats taken with runners in scoring position and didn’t end until 1 a.m.
The game was part pitchers’ duel (Blake Snell and Walker Buehler for the first eight innings) and part tightrope walk (everybody else for the rest of the night) with the two teams combining to go 3 for 39 with runners in scoring position during five scoreless extra innings before they started scoring runs in pairs.
AJ Pollock’s two-run leadoff home run – a confluence of baseball terms that was birthed last year – in the 16th inning finally held up for a 5-3 Dodgers victory.
“There’s just so much to unpack. But to come away with a win is huge,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after setting a major-league record by calling for eight intentional walks.
“A lot of high-fives, maybe a couple beer showers (in the locker room after the game). Guys really just on adrenaline and finding a way to win a ballgame. Should count as two but unfortunately, it doesn’t.”
The Dodgers and Padres were given 27 free baserunners in extra innings – 14 by rule, 11 by intentional walk, two more by regular walk – and looked all those gift horses squarely in the face, stranding the first 22 of them and going scoreless for five innings until the 15th inning when Billy McKinney and Trea Turner gave the Dodgers their first lead with back-to-back RBI singles.
The Dodgers ran into two outs on the bases – Max Muncy (in the 12th) and Will Smith (13th) caught in rundowns less than 90 feet from ending the late-night ordeal. The Padres did it once – in the 14th.
“It was pretty frustrating. But no one more frustrated than the hitters themselves,” Roberts said of all the runners stranded in scoring position. “We had pitches we should have handled. We just didn’t execute when we needed to. There’s certainly a cost in the arms that we had to use tonight. We’ll pick up the pieces for tomorrow.”
On defense, the Dodgers twice intentionally walked back-to-back hitters (Manny Machado and Jake Cronenworth both times) to load the bases with two outs. Each time, it brought up a Padres pitcher to bat and it worked out for the Dodgers.
“It’s just trying to find the best way to extend the game,” Roberts said, calling it “educated decision-making.”
“The pitchers still have to make pitches when you load the bases.”
Seventeen relief pitchers appeared in the game, combining to pitch 17-2/3 innings. The Dodgers’ first eight relievers nearly threw a no-hitter – the Padres went 10 innings between hits (some of it against Buehler) until Fernando Tatis Jr. re-tied the score with a two-run home run (his 35th of the season) off Corey Knebel in the bottom of the 15th.
“I can’t say enough about those guys,” Roberts said. “We needed every one of those outs.”
Long forgotten by the time it ended was the gem between Snell and Buehler.
Snell retired the first 11 Dodgers in order Wednesday. One of those outs came in the second inning when Wil Myers went back to the wall and pulled a Corey Seager fly ball back from over the fence, a robbery homage to Pollock’s outstanding catch in Tuesday’s game.
The 11th out in Snell’s no-hit string came on another fly ball to the wall. Muncy’s drive might have come up just short of home run distance but Padres center fielder Trent Grisham went up at the wall and caught it before it could do any damage.
Buehler held up his end of the high-level pitchers’ duel. He allowed just three hits in 6-2/3 innings, striking out eight.
One of those hits left the bat at just 69 mph and traveled less than 80 feet, but it drove in the only run of the first seven innings.
Cronenworth chopped a ground ball to the right side to start the second inning. Trea Turner cut in front of Seager to field it then threw across his body, high and wide of first base.
The throwing error left Cronenworth at second base and he moved to third on a ground out two batters later. That’s when Myers chopped a ground ball weakly up the third base line – so weakly that Justin Turner could only field it and hold the ball as Cronenworth scored from third on the infield single.
That unearned run looked like it might hold up as the difference until Padres manager Jayce Tingler sent Snell back out for the eighth inning.
Snell struck out Chris Taylor to start the inning and match the longest start of his career. He threw his career-high 115th pitch to Smith – who sent his 116th into the left field seats for a game-tying home run.
The night was still young at that point. It ended a tick short of 1 a.m., with the Dodgers’ 10th pitcher and 23rd player of the night, Shane Greene, retiring the Padres in order in the bottom of the 16th.
Greene was the 47th player of 52 on the two active rosters to appear in the game.
You hit the go-ahead HR, you get a 1am gatorade shower. Thems the rules. pic.twitter.com/vNQMUjvpVe
— SportsNet LA (@SportsNetLA) August 26, 2021
SWEET 16!
The @Dodgers lead again!! pic.twitter.com/2RV8nwltJP
— MLB (@MLB) August 26, 2021
UNBELIEVABLE pic.twitter.com/r1WtkXQl0j
— MLB (@MLB) August 26, 2021
In play, run(s) pic.twitter.com/IAipnCWBy7
— MLB (@MLB) August 26, 2021
Floodgates! pic.twitter.com/y764DKjh6u
— MLB (@MLB) August 26, 2021
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