When the season starts some cool games are expected throughout the year. Extra innings, pitchers duels, battles of the bullpen, high scoring blowouts, and box score oddities like position players pitching. However, they don't usually all come in the first month of the season and they don't usually all happen in one game.
On April 17, the Mets beat the Cardinals 3-2 in a game that when 20 innings and took 6 hours and 53 minutes to play. It started as a pitchers duel between Johan Santana and Jaime Garcia and eventually stayed scoreless through 18 innings. The game featured the first MLB hit for Raul Valdes, pitching in relief. It also was a game in which Francisco Rodriguez got the win and Mike Pelfrey got his first save. Both Felipe Lopez and Joe Mather pitched for the Cardinals, with Mather getting the loss.
This game had everything except a hit from Jeff Francoeur, who went 0-for-7 and his season seemed to spiral downward from there, and it just got better as the innings got later. It even had a base-hit from Mike Jacobs. People went out for dinner and expected to come back and check the box score for the results. It started in the late afternoon but ended with the night games.
I watched most of this game and listened to the parts I couldn't watch. I don't think I realized how cool the game was until the 15th inning. Spending almost 7 hours of my day watching baseball wasn't bad, but I don't think the Mets will have another game like this anytime soon.
Let's Go Mets!
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