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2018 World Series - Red Sox v Dodgers

dbecks

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Vic Mackey
Vic Mackey

It's ending this inning. I can feel it

MaxHorn
MaxHorn

I'm a lifelong Dodgers fan. My grandpa was the original radio engineer for Vin Scully & Jerry Doggett when the Dodgers moved to LA. My mother went out on a date with Sandy Koufax. I moved to Texas

Vic Mackey
Vic Mackey

Good thing you guys don't have Yu this time around for 2 free wins for the opposition haha.

dbecks

dbecks 442

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You can’t blame Cora by going for the jugular... but the Sox aren’t exactly sitting pretty now, even if they’re the “better” team with a 2-1 series lead, because:

-Eovaldi sits until Game 6 (most likely)
-Kimbrel just threw over 1 inning (with 28 pitches)
-Price was used
-Drew Fucking Pomeranz(!) is now your de-facto starter in a World Series Game 4

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kevwun

kevwun 15873

Posted
Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, dbecks said:

You can’t blame Cora by going for the jugular... but the Sox aren’t exactly sitting pretty now, even if they’re the “better” team with a 2-1 series lead, because:

-Eovaldi sits until Game 6 (most likely)
-Kimbrel just threw over 1 inning (with 28 pitches)
-Price was used
-Drew Fucking Pomeranz(!) is now your de-facto starter in a World Series Game 4

Pitching is gonna be a shitshow for the rest of the series.  18 innings of playoff pitching usage in the first game of 3 straight is going to lead to some craziness.

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Aesculus Glabra

Aesculus Glabra 0

Posted
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5 hours ago, dbecks said:

You can’t blame Cora by going for the jugular... but the Sox aren’t exactly sitting pretty now, even if they’re the “better” team with a 2-1 series lead, because:

-Eovaldi sits until Game 6 (most likely)
-Kimbrel just threw over 1 inning (with 28 pitches)
-Price was used
-Drew Fucking Pomeranz(!) is now your de-facto starter in a World Series Game 4

There's some truth to this, but maybe not as much as it seems as first glance. Unless Cora panics, I think the Sox will just ride with a Pomeranz and Rodriguez platoon for pretty much all of game 4, (I'd start Rodriguez because he just might throw out a good start and give them a chance to win while I have zero confidence in Pomeranz), and if it goes bad just take the L and line up Sale, Price, and Eovaldi, with a fairly rested bullpen, for the last three games. Leave Pomeranz out there like a flailing NHL goalie if need be just to save arms for down the road. The danger, of course, is that Rodriguez keeps them in it, Pomeranz  is useless but they still stay in it, and they blow through the bullpen again but ultimately lose that winnable game.

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54412

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Stark:

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LOS ANGELES – So where were you when Max Muncy homered to end the longest World Series game ever played?

A)Asleep?

B)Wishing you were asleep?

C)Just regained consciousness after nodding off?

Or D) screaming so loud in the middle of the freaking night, you were waking up everyone in your house who had had the sense to go to sleep?

Yeah, well, any of those would be the correct answer, because Game 3 of the World Series – Dodgers 3, Red Sox 2, in 18 surreal, improbable innings – was officially One of Those Nights.

It was a game that began in the gleaming California sunshine and ended at 3:30 in the morning back in the eastern time zone.

Heck it was a game that went on so long, you could have watched the first pitch in that gleaming California sunshine and then flown all the way back to the eastern time zone before it ended.

It was a game in which a relief pitcher threw 97 pitches, a Cy Young award-winner pinch-hit and Boston’s Eduardo Núñez went from hero to goat to Demolition Derby all-star in the span of about 11 minutes.

It was a game that summoned the ghosts of Kirk Gibson, Bill Buckner and even Chris Burke. And it was a game that will go down in history as more than just a baseball classic – because it lasted longer (7 hours and 20 insane minutes) than any game in the championship round of any of the four major professional sports. (Look, just so you know, we’re talking continuous action here, so don’t tell us about that 2008 World Series game in Philadelphia that took three days to finish because of the weather. Got it?)

But at half past midnight in southern California, on a Friday night turned Saturday morning, Max Muncy lofted a baseball toward the left-field pavilion at Dodger Stadium. And maybe he hasn’t realized this yet – but that baseball will be flying through the late-night air for the rest of his life.

“Obviously, there’s not many words I can use to describe that,” said the only man ever to launch an 18th-inning walk-off in a World Series game. “The feeling was just pure joy and incredible excitement.”

But mixed with that joy and that excitement was another powerful feeling: Exhaustion.

This was 440 minutes of chills and thrills, but also endurance and survival. So as these men lurched on and on and on, for one grueling inning after another, they couldn’t help but wonder whether this game had already etched itself into the lore of baseball’s all-time marathons.

“Of course,” said the Dodgers’ David Freese. “I think that’s just baseball talk. I mean, it’s important we understand that it’s history. And then you look at the clock and it’s tomorrow, basically. And you’re like, `Yeah, this has to be up there [with the longest games ever played].’ Just an insane game.”

But to describe a game like this as “insane” is almost a compliment. There have now been 663 World Series games in baseball history. It’s safe to say that none of the other 662 went anything like this one. So what made this one so unique and indelible? We’d be happy to sum that up for you!

SEVEN HOURS AND 20 MINUTES!

How many World Series games have ever lasted 7 hours and 20 minutes (or longer)? That would be none. How many postseason games have ever lasted 7 hours and 20 minutes? That would also be none. And in the last century, you know how many regular-season games have even droned on for more than 7 hours and 20 minutes? That would be two:

  •  May 8, 1984 – White Sox 7, Brewers 6 in 25 innings (8 hours, 6 minutes).
  • May 31, 1964 – Giants 8, Mets 6 in 23 innings (7 hours, 23, minutes).

But this game at Chavez Ravine actually went on so long, it broke the all-time record for a postseason game by nearly an hour – roaring onward for 57 minutes longer than a 2014 LDS game between the Giants and Nationals that also went 18 innings.

“I know it certainly seemed long,” Clayton Kershaw said afterward. “I don’t know if it was the longest ever, but it was really a pretty incredible experience.”

AN 18TH-INNING WALK-OFF!

Max Muncy has had himself a year, hasn’t he? From out of work in March to 18th-inning World Series walk-off hero in October? If someone isn’t writing the script already for his major motion-picture saga, they might as well shut down Hollywood. Seriously. Did that really happen?

“It happens in this dream right now,” Muncy said. “This exact one.”

Did you know that no one has hit a walk-off home run in the regular season in the 18th inning or later in more than 14 years? Last to do it, according to baseball-reference.com, was Alfonso Soriano – off Jamie Moyer – on June 24, 2004.

And no National League player has hit an 18th-inning walk-off bomb (or later) in the regular season in over three decades – since Billy Hatcher off Greg Maddux (in relief!) on Sept. 2, 1986.

But what makes this really crazy is that there now have been two 18th-inning postseason walk-off homers since the last one hit in any regular-season game – thanks to Houston’s Chris Burke, who had himself a Max Muncy moment against the Braves back in Game 4 of the 2004 NLDS.

Before that, naturally, there had never been any 18th-inning postseason homers – walk-off or otherwise. Baseball!

MORE FROM THE WALK-OFF ANNALS!

But let’s put the 18th-inning part of this story aside, because World Series walk-offs are cool no matter what inning a guy hits them in. So what made this one so cool?

  • This was the first World Series walk-off homer hit in any extra inning since Game 6, 2011 – a game that ended on a fairy-tale homer by Muncy’s 2018 Dodgers teammate, Freese. “Hey,” Freese said, when we informed him of that, “I’m glad to be a part of it.”
  • This was the first World Series walk-off homer hit by a Dodger since … (yep) Kirk Gibson, in Game 1, 1988. The Dodgers just celebrated the 30thanniversary of that homer a week or so ago.
  • This was only the fourth Dodgers walk-off hit of any shape or size in World Series history. Muncy and Gibson own two of those. The other two are equally legendary. There was a Cookie Lavagetto double that broke up what was then the longest no-hit bid in World Series history, by Bill Bevins, in the ninth. And there was a Jackie Robinson walk-off single that ended Game 6 of the 1956 World Series – which happened to be the last hit in Robinson’s remarkable career.
  • And finally, as our friend Doug (Kernels) Kern reports, this was the Dodgers’ first walk-off anything this late in any kind of game in over a century – since an 18th-inning Otto Miller fielder’s choice in Brooklyn, on Aug. 22, 1917. Sorry. We won’t be cueing up the videotape of that one!

FILLING UP THE OLD BOX SCORE!

When you play baseball for 7 hours and 20 minutes, stuff happens. A lot of stuff. Stuff like this…

  • 46 different players appeared in this game – every single position player on both teams and every pitcher except Chris Sale, Drew Pomeranz, Rich Hill and Hyun-Jin Ryu. In the history of the World Series, only one team had ever used 23 players in any game – the 1991 Twins, in a 12-inning loss to the Braves. And then, in this game, both teams used 23 players. Because of course they did.
  • In a related development, 18 pitchers pitched in this game. Yep, 18! Only twice in those previous 662 World Series games had any team run nine pitchers out there. Then, in this game, both teams used nine pitchers. Because of course they did.
  • And those 18 pitchers combined to throw a mind-boggling 558 pitches. The pitch-count era goes back three decades. You know how many postseason games in that time have featured that many pitches? Right. None. The only other game that has even come close was that 18-inning Astros-Braves game in 2005 (which made it to 553).

THE NATHAN EOVALDI SHOW!

You might have heard somewhere that Nathan Eovaldi was scheduled to start Game 4 for the Red Sox on Saturday. Uh, that won’t be happening – because Eovaldi will probably be totally encased in ice until game time, after one of the most heroic emergency relief outings of all time.

Nobody on the Red Sox threw more pitches in this game than he did (97). Which is slightly incredible for all sorts of reasons:

  • He didn’t appear until the 12thinning!
  • 13 different pitchers arrived on the mound in this game before he did. Yeah, 13!
  • He got more outs, and threw more innings, than his team’s starting pitcher, Rick Porcello (4 2/3 innings, 61 pitches). And our friends at baseball-reference could just find one World Series game in history in which a starter went as deep as Porcello, only to have a reliever on his own team go deeper. That was Game 5 of the 1952 World Series, when Ewell Blackwell started for the Dodgers and went five innings, and then Johnny Sain relieved him and went six.
  • And while we don’t have pitch counts for every World Series game ever played, we know that no one has thrown 97 pitches in relief in the games where someone did bother to count. The old record was 90, by Charlie Hough, in Game 5 of the 1978 World Series.

But Hough was a knuckleballer. And his team lost that game, 12-2. Eovaldi, on the other hand, was throwing 100 miles per hour. And all 97 of those pitches were thrown under excruciating pressure. So what Eovaldi did deserves to be described in more glowing terms than, say, “losing pitcher.” The term that came to mind for Freese was this: “MadBum-esque.”

“I started thinking about Madison Bumgarner,” he said. “I did. Just an incredible outing.”

A CY YOUNG PINCH-HIT!

You know what happens in an 18-inning World Series game when both teams run out of position players? Pitchers get to hit. That’s what.

So Eovaldi got more at-bats in this game (two) than Andrew Benintendi (one). And in the 17th inning, we had an extra special mystery guest at the plate – Clayton Kershaw himself.

  • Last (and only) previous Cy Young winner to pinch-hit in a World Series game? That would be Don Drysdale, in Game 2 of the 1965 World Series.
  • Last Dodgers pitcher to pinch-hit in a World Series game? That would also be Drysdale, who hit for Sandy Koufax in that game.
  • Last pitcher to get an actual hit as a pinch-hitter in a World Series game, according to Baseball-Reference? That would be the Giants’ Jack Bentley – a mere 95 years ago! (Bentley singled off Bob Shawkey in Game 4 of the 1923 World Series.)

Kershaw confessed afterward he had big dreams for himself once he got his spikes on – but not in the 17th. He’d written a beautiful script for the 16th.

“What I saw happening,” Kershaw revealed, “was Freezer (Freese) hitting a double, and then them walking Kiké (Hernandez) to get to me, and then me getting the game-winning hit. But that didn’t work. So…”

So instead, Kershaw got to hit in the 17th and lined out – to thunderous applause. Kershaw was then asked, “If you’d hit a home run there, would that have eclipsed Gibson’s homer?”

“If we won the Series, maybe,” he said, with a laugh. “But probably not.”

EDUARDO-MANIA!

Eduardo Núñez didn’t start this game for the Red Sox. But he definitely made his presence felt.

While batting in the top of the 13th, he somehow got tangled up with the catcher, Austin Barnes, during a wild pitch and wound up sprawled in the dirt … Then he squibbed a ball up the first-base line and ended up diving into first base as the go-ahead run scored, leaving him writhing in the dirt again … And in the bottom of the 13th, he toppled into the seats behind third base while running down a pop-up, which allowed the eventual tying run to go to second base but also left Núñez limping around a third time – all in one inning.

Asked later if he’d ever seen a sequence of adventures like that involving anyone, Red Sox manager Alex Cora said: “Well, actually after the [wild pitch], when the catcher ran over him, he felt he was in bad shape. But like I told him, he’s like, ‘I’m not coming out.’ I said, ‘Well, you can’t come out. We have no more players.’”

THE BUCKNER FILES!

According to ESPN Stats and Info, no team had scored a go-ahead run on an error in extra innings of a World Series game since…yep, the infamous Bill Buckner play in Game 6, 1986. So naturally…

  • The Red Sox took the lead in the top of the 13thon an error by Dodgers pitcher Scott Alexander.
  • Then the Dodgers tied it in the bottom of the 13thon an error by Red Sox second baseman Ian Kinsler.
  • And as the Athletic’s own stats-and-info guru, Katie Sharp, pointed out, there was some major Strange But Trueness at work in both of those instances. How many errors did Alexander make this season? That would be none. And how many throwing errors did Kinsler make during the entire regular season, in which he handled 532 total chances at second base? That would be one. And then they each did that in the same inning of a World Series game? Crazy.

But then again, have we mentioned it was One of Those Nights? The two teams went nearly three hours at one point without putting a single runner in scoring position … The Red Sox’ No. 1-2-3-4 hitters went an incomprehensible 0 for 28 in this game – something that had never been done, reports Stats LLC, by any team’s 1-2-3-4 hitters in any game in the live-ball era (regular-season or postseason) … And then there was Max Muncy, a Strange But True tale to end all Strange But True tales.

Want to guess how many walk-off hits he had had in his career before the home run that ended the longest World Series game ever played? Of course you can! That would be zero.

“This game,” said Clayton Kershaw, “was unbelievable.”

But after 7 hours, 20 minutes, 18 innings, 558 pitches and one home run for the storybooks, what had once felt “unbelievable” had somehow transformed into possibly the most improbable, most interminable and most unforgettable World Series game you’ll ever see in your life.

Unless you fell asleep like three hours before it ended. If you’re one of those people, you’ll just have to take our word for it.

 

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