The marathon men: A look back at that epic 15-inning Diamondbacks win

Fangraphs and the GDT roll-call finally woke from their slumber - can hardly blame them! - so figured I might as well provide the updates on that, along with a few other interesting nuggets of trivia about last night’s contest.

Roll-call

The final tally of comments was 1,181 from 50 different commenters, which is not bad for a midweek game! Michael and Cumulus were the engine-room, each passing the 150 mark: their stamina is appreciated!

All present were: AZDovs11, Andrew Chrun, AzDbackfanInDc, AzRattler, BobDolio, CumulusChoir, DORRITO, Dano_in_Tucson, Dcarbajal, DeadManG, DesertWeagle, Diamondhacks, GuruB, Jackwriter, Jim McLennan, JoeCB1991, Keegan Thompson, Makakilo, Michael McDermott, MikeDavisAZ, MikeMono, MrMrrbi, PaulGoldsmith, RMHSVoice, Red Reign, Smurf1000, SongBird, SonomaComa1999, Sprankton, The so-called Beautiful, Wesley Baier, Wildcats4Life13, aldma, asteroid, cheese1213, coldblueAZ, edbigghead, eel, hobgobnob, hotclaws, kilnborn, luckycc, onedotfive, red_leader, rustynails77, shoewizard, since_98, smartplays, suroeste and tommyt_16.

Now that all the recs can be counted, the Comment of the Night goes to Sprankton:

I think we might be seeing that one again on Meme Monday. :) But, as is SnakePit tradition, I also want to name and shame the most wildly incorrect comment of the night. This was a close-fought race: I almost went with Jackwriter, who said the Dodgers were “eyeing the pool already” - in the middle of the first inning of the opening game against them. Yeah. About that. But in the end, I went with SonomaComa1999:

Even if everyone should have learned last year that this team never gives up (44 comeback wins), the “Dodgers” and “class” should never be used in the same sentence...

Fangraph

I feel this would look very nice on T-shirts, mugs, mouse-mats, baseball caps, etc... The Dodgers managed to blow a win probability of 99.4% after Ketel Marte grounded out for the second out in the bottom of the ninth inning. Goldschmidt’s walk was worth 1.2%; his taking of second on defensive indifference, 0.2%; Pollock’s walk was 2.7%; then CO’s blast came in at 49.3%. Despite his heroics and the W, Fernando Salas was worth only 2.8%; the run he allowed in the top of the 15th, basically undid all his good work to that point. But there was no shortage of heroes and villains to be found last night:

1. Nick Ahmed, +46.5%
2. Archie Bradley, +30.2%
3. Jeff Mathis, +28.2%
4. Chris Owings, +19.7%
5. Ketel Marte, +16.4%
6. Brad Boxberger, +15.2%

and at the other end...

• A.J. Pollock, -11.3%
• David Peralta, -21.5%
• Alex Avila, -24.2%

In the record books

Appropriately, this was the 15th game in which the Diamondbacks threw at least 15 innings. Impressively, they have a record of 14-1 in these contests, the only defeat the 8-7, 17-inning loss to the Brewers in May 2015. They allowed 19 hits, tied as the franchise record for most given up in a D-backs win with two other games, most recently a 13-9 win over the Rockies in September 2013. [Admittedly, probably more impressive because that was a regulation game!] The 27 total base-runners we allowed last night was the highest total in a victory. The 280 pitches thrown by Arizona was second-most in franchise history, behind only the 317 required when we took 18 innings to beat Philadelphia 12-7.

The game lasted five hours and 46 minutes: as was well-recorded, that made it the longest in Chase Field history, but is only tied for fourth among all Diamondbacks contests. The three games, all on the road, which went longer were:

• May 31, 2015 - The 8-7 loss to the Brewers in 17 innings mentioned above (5:49)
• May 29, 2001 - A 1-0 victory over the Giants in San Francisco, which took 18 innings (5:53)
• August 24, 2013 - A 12-7 win in Philadelphia, that took 18 innings (7:06, and coincidentally, started at 7:06 - do the math, and you’ll see it finished at 2:12 am).

What about Chris Owing’s game-saving homer, tying the game up when the team were trailing by three and down to their final out in the ninth? That’s pretty rare, too: in fact, the only time it has been done previously by a Diamondback was on June 11, 2008 when Mark Reynolds went deep off Billy Wagner. However, Arizona ended up losing that game 5-3 in 13 innings.