July 17, 2011: In a scoreless game featuring 15 pitchers, Red Sox finally win in 16th inning

This Sunday night game, televised nationally by ESPN, started later than most night games—at 8:10 P.M.—and didn’t end until just before 2:00 A.M. local time on Monday. Surprisingly, when it ended, 5 hours and 44 minutes after first pitch, the majority of the crowd of 21,504 was still there.1

Those who remained couldn’t say they had seen a lot of action, though. For the first 15 innings at Tropicana Field, neither the Tampa Bay Rays nor the visiting Boston Red Sox scored even once, and there weren’t even that many hits. There were a lot of different pitchers.

Both starters went eight innings, but by the time the game was over, the Red Sox had used six pitchers and the Rays had used nine. In 32 half-innings, there were only eight hits, five by Boston and three by Tampa Bay, a rate of one hit every 43 minutes.2 Neither team committed an error. Red Sox pitchers walked only one, but Rays pitchers doled out 12 bases on balls, the last of which led to the game’s only run.

The Red Sox had lost their first six games of the 2011 season but recovered and came into the final game of their first series after the All-Star break with a 1½-game lead in the American League East Division. The Rays were third, six games behind. The first two games of the series had been high-scoring: Friday’s 9-6 Rays win, a 9-5 Red Sox victory on Saturday.

Starting for manager Joe Maddon and the Rays was Jeff Niemann, in his fourth season with Tampa Bay. He came into this game with a record of 4-4 and a 4.53 ERA. He allowed just two hits in his eight innings—which turned out to be only half the game. Boston first baseman Adrián González singled with two outs in the first inning; Niemann struck out the inning’s three other Red Sox batters. Second baseman Dustin Pedroia singled to left to lead off the fourth inning. After two outs, he stole second, but DH David Ortiz struck out. Niemann walked two, but no one else got as far as second base in his eight innings.

Josh Beckett was the starting pitcher for manager Terry Francona and the Red Sox. It was Beckett’s sixth season with Boston. He had been named to the AL All-Star squad but had not pitched in that game. He entered the July 17 game at 8-3, with a 2.27 ERA that was second-best in the league.3

Beckett didn’t walk anyone and allowed only one hit, and it wasn’t exactly a scorcher. In the first inning, Evan Longoria’s two-out grounder hit Beckett’s ankle and caromed to third base, and Longoria was safe with an infield single. Beckett then recorded 22 consecutive outs. Not another batter reached base through the eighth, though there were eight outfield flies characterized as “deep” on Baseball-Reference.com. B. J. Upton, for instance, led off the Rays’ second inning with a drive to the edge of the warning track in left-center, where center fielder Jacoby Ellsbury pulled it in.

Through eight innings, the only unusual occurrence came in the bottom of the eighth when Tampa Bay’s Sean Rodríguez hit a high foul fly ball that broke a light in the catwalk above the field, “causing glass to rain down and the game to be delayed for several minutes,” reported the Tampa Tribune.4 

The first real “threat” of the game for either team came in the top of the ninth. Kyle Farnsworth took over from Niemann and was greeted with a double to right-center by Pedroia. After one out, Kevin Youkilis walked. David Ortiz struck out, but J. D. Drew walked, loading the bases. Josh Reddick hit a routine fly ball to right-center to send the game to the bottom of the ninth.

Daniel Bard relieved Beckett and let two Rays get on. A two-out single into shallow center by former Red Sox center fielder Johnny Damon was Tampa Bay’s first baserunner since the first inning. The 37-year-old Damon stole second, his eighth steal of the season and 393rd of his career. Ben Zobrist walked, but Longoria flied out.

Two more Red Sox reached base in the top of the 10th, both on walks—the first by Marco Scutaro off Joel Peralta and then, after J.P. Howell replaced Peralta, a two-out walk by Pedroia. Nothing came of it.

The Red Sox loaded the bases with nobody out in the top of the 11th on three consecutive bases on balls. Howell walked the first two, and Jake McGee walked the third. McGee struck out Reddick, then was succeeded on the mound by Juan Cruz. Cruz struck out Jason Varitek and got Scutaro to pop up foul to his catcher. From the ninth through 11th innings, the Red Sox left eight runners on base.

Boston’s Matt Albers got three outs in the 10th, then gave up a leadoff single to Rodríguez in the 11th. A sacrifice put Rodríguez in scoring position. Albers struck out Reid Brignac, then gave way to Franklin Morales, who got an inning-ending groundout.

In the 12th, Cesár Ramos retired all three Red Sox batters he faced. Morales got the three Rays.

Brandon Gomes became the eighth pitcher of the game for Tampa Bay in the 13th. With two outs, he walked Darnell McDonald, but McDonald never got as far as second base. Alfredo Aceves took over for the Red Sox. He retired the Rays in order.

In the 14th, Gomes faced three Boston batters and got them all out. Aceves did the same in the bottom of the inning.

With one out, Gomes walked Adrián González in the 15th. Then he hit Youkilis with a pitch. Two fly balls ended the top of the inning. After striking out Zobrist looking to begin the Rays’ half of the 15th, Aceves hit Longoria and Casey Kotchman on back-to-back pitches but got Upton to pop up to second. With Justin Ruggiano at the plate and the count 0-and-1, ESPN commentator Orel Hershiser said, “The fans are so tired they can’t cheer for this winning hit.” Ruggiano grounded to short, and Scutaro flipped to Pedroia for the third out.

Adam Russell came in to pitch the top of the 16th inning. Reddick worked a walk on nine pitches—the 12th walk off Rays pitchers. Varitek, who caught the entire game for Boston, sacrificed him to second base. Scutaro reached on an infield single to short, Reddick taking third base—though he almost got caught off base after rounding it. Ellsbury’s fly ball to left was too shallow to score him. But—with his third hit of the game—Pedroia slashed a single to right field and the Red Sox had a 1-0 lead. On the 270th pitch from a Tampa Bay pitcher, González hit a ball to the wall in right, but it was hauled in by a leaping Zobrist.

Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon took over. With 11 pitches, he struck out the first batter he faced, then got routine grounders from the next two and the game was over. Through the 2025 season, it was the longest 1-0 win by innings in Red Sox franchise history, and the longest 1-0 loss in Rays history.5

Commentator Bobby Valentine said of Pedroia, “A lot of these guys might be tired, but that little guy could go all night long. He’ll be back at the ballpark tomorrow at 11:30, ready to do it again.”6

The game had taken so long that Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan confessed to multi-tasking, writing that he had perused Baseball Prospectus, the entire Sunday Globe, the entire Sunday New York Times, as well as “an issue of Vanity Fair containing an absolute must-read piece on the rather bizarre relationship between the USA and Pakistan; two issues of The Atlantic, one of which had a very interesting what-if slant on Sarah Palin, who willingly consorted with Democrats as governor of Alaska; and, finally, the SLAM magazine with Allen Iverson on the cover.”7

Maddon and Rays bench coach Dave Martinez both had been ejected in the 11th inning, but they no doubt watched from the clubhouse.  

The Red Sox exploded the next night, beating the Orioles, 15-10. The Rays hosted the New York Yankees and took an early 4-1 lead, but wound up losing, 5-4. At the end of the season, the Rays edged the Red Sox by one game for the AL’s wild card spot.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Thomas J. Brown Jr. and copy-edited by Mike Eisenbath.

Photo credit: Dustin Pedroia, Trading Card Database.

Sources 

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TBA/TBA201107170.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2011/B07170TBA2011.htm

For those interested to watch the entire 5-hour and 44-minute game, it is available on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzyW1-rFUD0

Thanks to Wes Singletary for providing Tampa Tribune coverage of the game.

Notes

1 Roger Mooney, “Long, crazy night at the Trop,” Tampa Tribune, July 19, 2011: 20. All the other games in the majors had been afternoon games.

2 Credit Roger Mooney for the calculation.

3 Jered Weaver of the Anaheim Angels led the AL with a 1.90 ERA.

4 Mooney. At approximately 2 hours and 31 minutes of the ESPN broadcast one can see shards of glass land on the field, and the grounds crew comes out and picks up as many as they can find.

5 The previous franchise record was a 15-inning 1-0 win by the then-Boston Americans over the Detroit Tigers in 1904.

6 Both the Hershiser and Valentine quotations are heard on the YouTube video.

7 Bob Ryan, “Perfectly happy to manage incredible 16-inning game,” Boston Globe, July 19, 2011: C1, C3.