An Incredible Night/Morning in the NL West
For five straight days in 2019 (September 19-23), the St. Louis Cardinals broke the hearts of the home team: they had
four one-run road wins against
the Chicago Cubs and a playoff-eliminating
road win against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The next night/following morning (September 24/25), the tables turned on
the Cardinals: their hearts were broken in a 19-inning loss
to the Diamondbacks.
They led going into the bottom of the 9th inning and then led going into the bottom of the 13th inning, yet they still
lost the game. They lost the lead in the 9th innning because of a game-tying home run by Diamondbacks infielder Ildemaro Vargas.
If the weren't for that home run, the game-winning hit would have occurred on the 4th pitch of the game. Instead, it occurred on the 594th pitch (6 hours
and 51 minutes later)! The game was so long that it ended the day after it started.
The same day the 19-inning affair started between the Diamondbacks and Cardinals,
the Colorado Rockies defeated the San Francisco Giants
in 16 innings. Just like the Diamondbacks/Cardinals game, the Giants/Rockies game was played over two days. The
Giants and Rockies used a combined 25 pitchers, an MLB record. (The Cardinals and Diamondbacks only used 24
pitchers.) It's a record that
won't be broken anytime soon.
According to Diamondbacks television broadcaster Bob Brenly (who played many years for the Giants), it was the first
time in MLB history that two Pacific/Mountain Time Zone 16+ inning games were played on the
same day. The two 16+ inning games were two of only eight 16+ inning games
played during the 2019 regular season. (Three of the eight games were played in San Francisco.)
Because of the special extra-inning rules
during the pandemic, there has been exactly one 16+ inning game since the two 16+ inning games over three years
ago. Again, it involved two NL West teams and was played over two days: the Los Angeles Dodgers
defeated the San Diego Padres in 16 innings on August 25/26, 2021. All five NL West teams have been involved in the last three 16-inning MLB games; only one of the
twenty-five non-NL West teams (Cardinals) has been involved in the three games.