Dodgers/Padres: 16 Innings Later

When LA and San Diego face off, things tend to go down. Tonight was no exception and the two teams gave us an insanely strange ballgame.

Major Game 3 2018 World Series vibes. By the numbers, the game played between the San Diego Padres and LA Dodgers last night (and early this morning) was hard to fathom. 47 total players out of the 52 available were used by the two squads in a near 6-hour thriller that had everything you could imagine.

The Dodgers extensively utilized the intentional walk in extras, and Corey Knebel intentionally balked, (yes, intentionally balked) TWICE. Most of the fun of this game came in extras, and things were wild because of the new rule that went into effect last season in the runner on second base.

Before we get into that, however, the starting pitching matchup between Walker Buehler and Blake Snell cannot be overlooked. The two went head to head pitching lights out, only allowing one earned run during a 1-1 game. The unearned of the two came on the Padres scoring off a swinging bunt with a -68 degree launch angle that resulted in a below 70 MPH exit velocity. Let's just say this hit in the fifth inning would be the last hit by San Diego for a very long time.

Buehler, a candidate for NL Cy Young this season, went 6.2 innings and allowed no runs, and the former is a metric he's been able to attain consistently this year, constantly handing things over to the bullpen for a rather short stint. This wouldn't be the case tonight, and the bullpen threw more innings than Buehler.

Blake Snell was also incredible, going further than Buehler at 7.2 innings, but allowed a solo homer courtesy of Will Smith in the 8th, who also had a clutch home run the night before. San Diego's bullpen would also be in for a treat next.

The game ended with close to 500 pitches being thrown between the two ball clubs. This wasn't even the crazy thing about relief pitching tonight. The Padres ended up exacerbating their hitting chances in extras when they used their last position player, forcing Jayce Tingler to have pitchers like Joe Musgrove, Ryan Weathers, and Daniel Camarena pinch hit and hit in pitcher's spots.

Two of those guys hit homers this year, and Camarena's was a grand slam off Max Scherzer earlier in the year in a game against Washington.

Rob Manfred and company implemented the runner-on-second rule for extras to speed up ballgames, which for the most part has worked, but the Padres and Dodgers ability to pitch around inherited runners combined with league-best bullpen ERAs was a major blow to this rule.

No game since 2019 has gone more than 13 innings because of the rule, with the Dodgers being one of the teams to reach that feat last year in a thriller against the Astros.

It was a 1-1 game all the way until the 15th inning, when the Dodgers were finally able to string together some hits for 2 RBI. Billy McKinnie was announced as a pinch hitter and delivered an RBI single in the 9 hole to drive in the go-ahead run. Trea Turner was next up, and he too gave LA a clutch RBI, making it 3-1. The game was finally over, right?

Of course not. I doubt Manfred was awake to see his glorious rule fail in this way. Can't really blame him, it was almost 4am Eastern Time at this point.

Dave Roberts is known by Dodger fans to make, well let's say interesting, managing decisions. He intentionally walked Manny Machado and Jake Cronenworth every time they were up to bat in extras, since the lead runner would walk it off anyway regardless of their base positioning. It ended up working every time. Kudos to LA's skipper. It was the most intentional walks by a team since the Yankees in '04. The depletion of San Diego's bench really proved to be costly as the pitcher's spot had to hit multiple times in extras.

Bottom 15, who's up? None other than prodigal son Fernando Tatis Jr., who was actually having an awful game. Tatis was 0-6 with 4 strikeouts heading into this AB, where things got even weirder. The runner at second was Victor Caratini, and the Dodgers pitcher was Corey Knebel. The dodgers reliever was getting ready to pitch, and dropped the baseball. Everyone thought it was a balk, but the umps didn't rule it that way.

At this point everyone was already delirious because of the long game, and the commentators were in awe of the weirdness of the night. It got weirder when Knebel went to pitch to Tatis and then didn't. He balked, again. The first one wasn't called, but this one was so obvious that it was immediately called. The ESPN broadcast lost it, and the game couldn't be more unique, until they realized Knebel balked on purpose to prevent sign-relaying from Caratini at second.

Who was up again? Oh yeah, Tatis. He ended up homering to tie the game at 3. Of course the show had to go on. It wasn't late enough down in San Diego, where fans and Mookie Betts were dancing in delirium.

LA didn't allow any more runs that inning, so to the 16th we went. Aside from Will Smith who was a hero the past two nights, AJ Pollock was the story of the previous game with an impressive home run robbery of Manny Machado and a 2 RBI hit.

Deja Vu is real. Smith homered earlier in the game on a solo shot, the same as the night before, so when Pollock came to the plate in the 16th inning, it was only fitting that he would give the Dodgers 2 RBI once again. He homered to give LA a 5-3 lead, which proved to be the difference as Shane Greene was able to get his first save since 2019 in the bottom of the 16th, slamming the door on the Padres.

The game started on Max Muncy's birthday, and ended on Brusdar Graterol's. Happy Birthday to both Dodgers studs. Poor Muncy was 0-7 on his birthday, but the win must've felt nice, something reminiscent of when he hit a walk-off homer against the Red Sox in game 3 of the 2018 World Series in the 18th inning.

The implications of this late August game were both extremely important to both teams, who are vying for playoff positioning in different ways. LA is looking to catch their arch-rival Giants, who are 2.5 games up on them in the division. San Diego has fallen off a cliff, but is still in the Wild Card race. Had they won, they'd be tied with Cincy for the second WC spot, but instead are currently on the outside looking in. A tight race is ahead for both teams.

Glad I stayed up for that one.