The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the San Diego Padres by a 5-3 final (GameTracker) on Wednesday night in a marathon game. The two sides required 16 innings and more than five and a half hours to complete their business. It is the longest game and the first contest to go beyond the 13th inning since Major League Baseball instituted the runner-on-second start to extra innings ahead of the 2020 season, according to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The Dodgers prevailed in a battle of attrition that saw the two teams combine to use 19 pitchers.
Incredibly, the Dodgers did not allow an earned run all night until the 15th. The one run allowed prior to that point, by starter Walker Buehler, was deemed unearned after Jake Cronenworth reached in the second on a fielding error by Trea Turner. (Cronenworth later scored on a Wil Myers infield single.)
Hello from the 15th inning. pic.twitter.com/Iwzyc6kIga
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) August 26, 2021
The Dodgers wouldn't get on the board themselves until the eighth inning, when Will Smith struck a solo home run. The two sides then swapped zeroes until the 15th, when Los Angeles plated a pair of runs. Billy McKinney struck first with an RBI single to center. The aforementioned Turner then singled to left to give the Dodgers a temporary 3-1 lead.
"Temporary" because Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a game-tying home run in the San Diego portion of the 15th that clanked off Chris Taylor's glove to extend the game:
UNBELIEVABLE pic.twitter.com/r1WtkXQl0j
— MLB (@MLB) August 26, 2021
The Dodgers would strike right back in the 16th, with A.J. Pollock delivering a two-run home of his own to put up Los Angeles by a 5-3 mark. That doubled as the game's final score.
The story of the night (outside of the duration of the game, anyway) for the Padres was their inability to cash in on a stellar start from left-hander Blake Snell. Snell, who entered the evening with a 4.82 ERA (79 ERA+) in his first 23 appearances this season, limited the Dodgers to a run on three hits and no walks over 7 ⅔ innings. He also struck out 10 batters. The only blemish on Snell's night was that he was left in too long, as he surrendered a game-tying home run to Will Smith before departing with a pitch count north of 120.
The Padres have now lost three games in a row heading into the series finale on Thursday. San Diego is 15-20 for the second half, and has fallen out of the projected playoff bracket.
The Dodgers, meanwhile, are now 24-12 in the second half, including 17-4 in August.
