The Rangers and Blue Jays played an 18-inning game today.
- It wasn’t the longest game of the day.
– That honor belongs to the Mets and Marlins, who played a 2-1 game and took 20 innings and over six hours to do it.
— The Mets/Marlins game was an afternoon game on the east coast while the Yankees/Mariners game was an afternoon game on the west coast. The Yankees/Mariners game ended first.
—- Matt Harvey started the game for the Mets and pitched seven innings. His was not the longest outing by a Met.
—– Shaun Marcum entered in the top of the 13th and pitched eight innings. He took the loss. Marcum became the first pitcher to throw eight full innings in relief since Scott Sanderson did it for the Cubs in 1989.
—— This was actually Marcum’s second relief appearance of the year, AND the second where he got the loss against the Marlins in a long extra innings game. (The other one “only” went 15.)
——- Marcum was the only pitcher in the game to throw over 100 pitches. He’s not the first reliever to do that this season—Brett Marshall for the Yankees and Felix Doubront for the Red Sox have also done it.
——– That’s right, two Mets pitchers threw 7+ innings and gave up only one run. Neither of them got the win. In fact, one of them got the loss.
——— This was Marcum’s longest outing of the year, and the first time he allowed fewer than two runs. If this was a start, it would easily be his best of the season, and would be one of the best of his career.
———- Harvey has only one decision over his last nine starts, dating back to April 19. His ERA is 2.66 over that time. (h/t Sports Illustrated)
———– The Marlins and Mets have played ten games so far this season and the Marlins have won seven of them. They are 10-41 against everyone else.
———— The Mets went 0-19 with RISP. The Marlins went 2-4. In a 20-inning game, the Marlins only had four at bats with RISP. And they won.
————- Four pitchers in this game threw at least six innings and allowed 1 run or less. That’s just the third time that has ever happened.
————– In a similar vein, (the same) four pitchers struck out at least six. This is just the second time that has ever happened.
The Rangers and Blue Jays set franchise records for longest games played. While the Marlins tied theirs, it was only the fourth longest game in Mets history.
- Combined, for all four teams, 23 relievers had scoreless outings.
– In Texas/Toronto, Casey Janssen blew a save for the first time since last August; he had been 12-for-12.
— Joe Nathan, the Rangers’ closer, never pitched.
—- In these two games, pitchers threw 1,089 pitches. The Athletics have thrown 1,086 pitches in June, and they haven’t had a day off yet.
—– Via @tmiller2462, in the expansion era, 92 of 108,864 games had gone 18 innings. That’s a rate 0.0769%, which comes out to about two per year. Today’s games were the second and third of 2013; the Angels and Athletics, you may remember, played a 19-inning game on April 30th.
—— Today was the first day in baseball history where there were two games that went at least eighteen innings, with one game going longer. The last time there was a day with two games of exactly eighteen innings was actually surprisingly recent: August 15, 2006.
With all the long games today, it was the Angels and Red Sox that spent the most time on the field. They played a doubleheader where the first game took four hours, and the second took 3:25.
- Josh Hamilton is hitting .216/.279/.383.
– There are 65 qualified hitters who have a higher batting average than Hamilton’s current on-base percentage.
— Hamilton stole a base in the first game.
—- Brad Hawpe played in the majors for the first time since 2011.
—– Clay Buchholz is 9-0 with a 1.71 ERA.
John Danks won a game.
- It’s his first win since May 19, 2012, over a year ago.
– He won against the absurdly hot A’s, too.
Via @YankeesWFAN, Andy Pettitte won his first game on June 7th, 1995. His son Josh was seven months old. Andy won his 250th game 18 years and 1 day later, which happened to be the same day that the Yankees drafted Josh.
In the first inning of Braves/Dodgers, Justin Upton bunted with two on and nobody out. In the bottom half of the inning, Yasiel Puig attempted to bunt for a hit.
- Kris Medlen homered. It’s his first homer and just his third extra-base hit. His career OPS+ entering the game was -7.
Domonic Brown hit his 12th homer since the last time Justin Upton hit one (May 17th).
A Twins starter struck out seven.
- That ties the season high for a Minnesota starter.
– They beat the Nationals – who are now 29-31.
Luke Scott tripled.
- Jeremy Hellickson, who entered with a 5.59 ERA, threw six scoreless innings against Baltimore.
– Baltimore is third in the AL in runs scored.
Aroldis Chapman didn’t strike anyone out.
(We would like to thank CBS Eye on Baseball for some of the info for the Rangers/Jays and Marlins/Mets games!)