The Wackness

Sometimes in baseball it seems like a lot of crazy stuff happens all at once. Saturday, April 17th was one of those days. There was some history-making pitching, some non-hitting, a Cy-Young candidate hitting like a Silver Slugger, and just all around strangeness. But where to begin. Well, we have to give credit where credit is do, and talk about the "Rocky Mountain High" that occurred Saturday. Miss you John Denver.
There were four teams going into Saturday that have never had a pitcher throw a no-hitter; the Colorado Rockies, San Diego Padres, Tampa Bay Rays, and New York Mets. Rockies' ace Ubaldo Jimenez sought to remedy that while facing the Atlanta Braves yesterday. Jimenez pitched a beauty in Atlanta, going the distance with 7 strikeouts. He was a little erratic though, walking 6. But his electric stuff and solid defense behind him(the diving catch by Dexter Fowler was amazing) helped secure the first no-no in Colorado Rockies history. This extraordinary feat is just icing on the cake to an already stellar season start for the 26-year old. In three games, Jimenez is 3-0 with 1.29 ERA and 20 strikeouts. This kid has an extremely bright future ahead of him. Congratulations young man!
Unfortunately this game wasn't available in my area, so I had to catch highlights. What was available in my area was the barnburner between the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals. This game was scoreless in the 18th inning. You heard me right. The futility of both teams' hitting was palpable. Both of the Mets' runs were scored off of sacrifice flys which don't count as hits. So only Yadier Molina's single to drive in Albert Pujols counted as a hit with runners in scoring position, or RISP. Therefore, the two teams combined to be 1-25 with RISP. Wow. Don't get me wrong, there was some great pitching last night. Both starters were fantastic, and the bullpens did a great job. Even the two position players that the Cardinals used to pitch did a decent job. But this was due mostly to bad hitting. Oh, and I should mention, 652 pitches were thrown last night. That's a lot in case you're wondering. And the game went 6 hours and 53 minutes. I think a Yankee-Red Sox game might even have been over quicker.
So the game I watched was remarkable too, just in a different way. But this got me thinking; 'What is the longest scoreless game ever played?' Well I looked it up, and oddly enough it also had the Mets in it. On April 15th, 1968 the Mets and Houston Astros played a game into the 24th inning, when [Al] "Weis, utility infielder for the Mets who was filling in at shortstop because Bud Harrelson had a sore arm, let a bases-loaded grounder go through his legs... The Astros and the Mets matched zeroes for what seemed forever before Bob Aspromonte's grounder skipped through Weis' legs to score Norm Miller in the 24th inning. The run gave the Astros an incredible 1-0 victory in a six-hour and six-minute marathon that ended at 1:37 a.m. (Houston time)." Thanks Astros Daily, http://www.astrosdaily.com/history/19680415/
But I also found another interesting piece of information while searching last night. Apparently the longest professional baseball game ever recorded was a Triple-A game between the Pawtucket Red Sox and Rochester Red Wings in Pawtucket Rhode Island on April 18th, 1981. What is it with April games taking so long? Anyway, the game began on a Saturday night and continued into Easter Sunday morning. While most leagues have a curfew rule to suspend games, the home plate umpire's rule book did not contain one, and they had to keep playing. "So the teams continued playing until the president of the league, Harold Cooper, was finally reached on the phone sometime after 3 a.m. Finally at 4:07, at the end of the 32nd inning, the game was stopped. At this point, there were 19 fans left in the seats, all of whom were given season passes to McCoy Stadium." People say don't trust Wikipedia, but who would make this up, so thanks Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_professional_baseball_game. I love the fact that the last 19 people got season tickets. The game was resumed on June 23rd and took only one inning and 18 minutes to play. Ha!
But back to present day. A couple other funny things happened on Saturday. Nothing monumental, mind you, just something I thought worth mentioning. Tim Lincecum is known for pitching outstanding games, but not so much for being a great hitter. No one expects him to be though, because he's a pitcher. But the career .151 slugger went 3-4 yesterday, driving in three runs, while pitching his way to his third season victory. And speaking of runs. Who would've thought that the Washington Nationals would be scoring runs at a high pace lately. In three of their last four games the Nats have scored 7 or more runs and with Adam Dunn's first homer of the season coming the other day, this team could be a dangerous threat to many other N.L. teams. Now I'm not saying they are taking the pennant or anything, but it should be noted, and respected that the Nats may be more than just a summer annoyance. How ya like that one!!