Pop some popcorn and watch the best pitcher-hitter battles from the 2016 season
Baseball time is kept by strikes, outs and innings instead of seconds, minutes and hours. Although baseball's timekeeping methods always do their part to keep games orderly, they add an exciting layer of unpredictability to the sport. A game can stretch deep into extra innings. Teams can bat around in an inning. And a plate appearance? It can be extended to extreme pitch counts by foul ball after foul ball.
Today we're going to celebrate some of the best and most exciting times foul balls were used to push the extremes of what's possible through a look at some of the longest and best plate appearances of 2016.
What classifies a plate appearance as "long"? For our purposes today, any plate appearance reaching a pitch count in the double digits qualifies. How often did that happen? Of the 184,580 times a batter stepped into the batter's box in a Major League game, the pitch count only extended to 10 or more 831 times or a measly 0.45% of the time.
Now, on to our favorite long plate appearances of 2016:
The Longest
Date: 6/3/16
Matchup:
of pitches: 18
The longest plate appearance of 2016 wasn't just the longest this year, but it was also the longest in more than a decade. Athletics shortstop Marcus Semien stepped to the plate with one out and one on in the top of the second to face off against Astros pitcher Doug Fister. The Astros had put up a seven-spot in the first inning, so the stakes were extraordinarily low for this particular at-bat, providing no hint as to the greatness that was about to unfold.
Ten fastballs, four sliders, two curveballs and one changeup later, Semien faced the 18th pitch of the at-bat. It was the first 18-pitch plate appearance in the Majors since June 10, 2004 when Adam Kennedy worked an 18-pitch walk. Curiously, Kennedy's walk came only about a month after the infinitely more famous 18-pitch marathon between the Dodgers'
Unlike Kennedy and Cora, Semien lost this battle and rolled over a fastball down the middle to finally end the at-bat with a groundout. Remarkably, Fister remained in the game for four more innings -- and in all but one of them, the pitch count for the entire inning was less than the 18 it took to retire Semien.
Check out a full strike-zone recap of the at-bat:
The Longest for a Pitcher
Date: 8/29/16
Matchup:
of pitches: 14
The best hitting pitcher in baseball this season was the reigning 2015 Cy Young Award winner, Jake Arrieta. He put together a tremendous .262/.304/.415 slash line, knocked two homers for the second consecutive season and just won his first Silver Slugger Award. On August 29, Arrieta singled in his first at-bat against Pirates starter Steven Brault, but it was his at-bat in the fourth that would be particularly memorable for the crowd in Wrigley Field.
A home crowd doesn't typically applaud their player striking out, but a pitcher striking out after a dramatic 14-pitch at-bat is anything but typical. With a runner on first and nobody out, Arrieta fouled off eight consecutive pitches in order to reach the 14th offering of the at-bat. Then, after 13 straight fastballs, Brault finally caught Arrieta off-guard with a slider to induce a swing and a miss for strike three.
In the clip above you can watch as the Wrigley Field crowd gradually gets more and more invested in this unexpectedly long at-bat before ultimately applauding Arrieta's effort despite the outcome.
Here's the full strike-zone chart:
The Walk-off
Date: 5/28/16
Matchup:
of pitches: 10
Although this one barely crossed our pitch-count threshold, we're glad it did because it was one of the most thrilling at-bats of the year.
Leverage index (LI) is a stat that quantifies the pressure of a particular moment (1.00 LI is an average leverage situation). When Brett Eibner came to bat in the bottom of the ninth with two outs, the bases loaded and the game tied 7-7, the LI was a sky-high 6.39. No long plate appearance this year had a higher LI.
The thing about Eibner's ninth-inning at-bat is that it was his second of the inning. When the ninth began, the White Sox were up 7-1, but a six-run rally tied the game. With a runner on third and two outs, Tommy Kahnle intentionally walked
As if that's not exciting enough, this was just the second game of Eibner's Major League career. Not a bad way to start it off.
Check out the chart:
The Longest Postseason PA
Date: 10/13/16, NLDS Game 5
Matchup:
of pitches: 13
Although it may be overly simplistic to point to one moment or one at-bat as the singular reason for the outcome of a postseason series, there's a case to be made that Justin Turner's fourth-inning at-bat against Max Scherzer in the win-or-go-home NLDS Game 5 set the stage for the Dodgers' eventual series victory. With two outs and nobody on, Turner battled Scherzer until finally drawing a walk on the 13th pitch.
Even with that walk to Turner, Scherzer kept the Dodgers off the board through six innings. But, with his 99th pitch of the night, he allowed a seventh-inning leadoff home run to
If Scherzer hadn't been worked so hard by Turner in that fourth-inning at bat, perhaps he would've had enough left to get through the seventh inning. Who knows?
Take a look at that chart:
Unpredictable moments like these build tension and remind us that Yogi Berra was absolutely right: "It ain't over 'til it's over."
