The Padres and
Diamondbacks went 16 innings Sunday, San Diego going through nine pitchers and
Arizona ten. That’s right, D-backs’
manager Torey Lovullo couldn’t find a losing pitcher until he called on catcher
Jeff Mathis to move from behind the plate, where he’d spent the entire game to
that point, to the mound. Lovullo gets
my vote for dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks managing award.
Think about it. The man burned through nine pitchers before
risking his catcher to injury. Arizona
carries “only” twelve pitchers, and Lovullo did use two pinch hitters. Well, maybe number three would’ve worked if
only they carried more position players.
But I show my age in saying that.
Because I have the
makings of a pack rat, I was able to pull out my 1968 White Sox yearbook, which
included box scores from two extra-inning games for the ’67 team. In a 6-5 22-inning loss to the Senators, Sox
manager Eddie Stanky used but six pitchers, with John Buzhardt taking the loss
in eight innings of relief. A 17-inning
1-0 win over Cleveland featured four Sox pitchers, including starter Gary
Peters, who went the first eleven innings.
No, I don’t expect
pitchers to go eleven, but it would be nice to see them go more than 2/3 of an
inning, as two of the Arizona pitchers did.
Oh, and that 17-inning game took all of 4:32 to play vs. 5:31 for Sunday’s
game. The 22-inning game—or 21-1/3 to be
precise—took 6:38, an hour and seven minutes basically for six more innings.
Really, some stuff old
should be new again.
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