August 26, 2016: Diamondbacks beat Reds in 11th inning as Edwin Escobar earns sole major-league win

A late summer baseball game can build confidence during a pennant race and boost momentum. Unfortunately for the crowd of 26,087 at the August 26, 2016, game between the Cincinnati Reds and Arizona Diamondbacks, neither team was in contention. The Diamondbacks, the National League’s youngest franchise, entered the game with 53 wins and 75 defeats. The Reds, one of the senior circuit’s original teams, were only slightly better at 54-72.

On this warm Friday evening, the teams treated the paying public to a pitchers’ duel, followed by an odd sequence of events in extra innings, punctuated by a thrilling win for the local nine. The excitement offered a temporary respite from both teams’ forgettable seasons.

Arizona starter Braden Shipley, a 6-foot-1 right-handed rookie, retired the side in the top of the first inning in a scant 10 pitches. His Cincinnati counterpart, 5-foot-11 southpaw Brandon Finnegan, used 17 to strike out Jean Segura, A.J. Pollock, and Paul Goldschmidt.

Reds cleanup hitter Adam Duvall sent a line drive to deep center field to open the second frame. Veteran Brandon Phillips advanced Duvall to third base with a perfect bunt to the right side of the infield. Scott Schebler laced a single to center field to drive in Duvall for a 1-0 Cincinnati lead. Notorious free-swinger Eugenio Suárez worked a six-pitch walk, but Shipley settled down and retired the next two batters and avoid further damage.

In the home second, Rickie Weeks hit a one-out triple to the gap between center and right fields. After Yasmany Tomás struck out, Brandon Drury punched a groundball though the hole in the left side of the infield to score Weeks. Chris Owings struck out to end the inning, but the game was now tied.

The pitchers retired their opponents in order in the third. Shipley also made short work of the Reds in the fourth, using only 11 pitches to win his second round against Duvall, Phillips, and Schebler. The Diamondbacks’ Weeks blasted a home run to deep left field in the home part of the inning as they made Finnegan labor through 22 pitches. Arizona now led, 2-1.

Cincinnati threatened in the fifth as Suárez drew his second walk of the evening. He was forced at second on a fielder’s choice, and Ramón Cabrera took his spot on first base. Finnegan bunted him to second base and Billy Hamilton walked on five pitches, but Pollock snared José Peraza’s line drive to center field to stem the danger. Finnegan struck out the locals in the fifth to reach 11 strikeouts for the game.

Joey Votto of the Reds drew a walk to begin the sixth and advanced to second on Duvall’s single. Shipley induced Phillips to hit into a double play and retired Schebler on a weak grounder back to the mound. In the bottom of the inning, Finnegan countered with two groundouts and a walk to Welington Castillo before fanning Weeks.

In the top of the seventh, Michael Bourn replaced Weeks in left field. After two quick outs, pinch-hitter Zack Cozart doubled to left field. Cincinnati could not capitalize, though, as Hamilton grounded to the left side for the third out.

Michael Lorenzen took the mound for the departed Finnegan, whose dozen strikeouts were a career best. Lorenzen retired his first two batters but hit Owings with a pitch. Arizona, despite Shipley’s strong performance, opted for an insurance run. Jake Lamb pinch-hit for Shipley and Owings stole second base. But on the next pitch, Lamb lined out to shortstop to end the inning.

The contest became a bullpen chess game. Both starters could hold their heads high on a job well done: Shipley’s performance was his best in two weeks, while Finnegan delivered his fourth quality start in August. Randall Delgado took the mound for the Diamondbacks in the top of the eighth and handled five batters in only 11 pitches, stranding a pair of runners.

The Diamondbacks threatened again in the bottom of the eighth. Reds manager Bryan Price summoned Jumbo Díaz, who retired Segura and Pollock. Goldschmidt hit a single and stole second base, his 21st steal of the year. Price challenged the play, claiming the tag had been successful, but the call was upheld. Castillo worked a five-pitch count from the suddenly laboring Díaz and Goldschmidt tested his luck by stealing third, but he was nabbed by Cabrera’s strong throw.

Diamondbacks skipper Chip Hale entrusted Daniel Hudson with the thin lead. Hudson buoyed the fans’ hope for a one-two-three inning as he induced a Suárez groundout and struck out Cabrera. Pinch-hitter Iván de Jesús Jr. battled Hudson to a full count before connecting for a single to center field. His task completed, de Jesús was lifted for pinch-runner Tyler Holt. Hamilton’s single advanced the runner and Peraza’s base hit to right field scored Holt and tied the game.

Arizona played the percentages and walked Cincinnati first baseman Votto to load the bases. The crowd, in suspense during a six-pitch battle between Hudson and Duvall, breathed a collective sigh of relief as Pollock caught Duvall’s drive to deep center field.

Holt remained in the game as the Reds’ left fielder in the bottom of the ninth. Cincinnati called Raisel Iglesias to the mound. Their future closer was not yet entrenched in the role and had thus far alternated between the rotation and the bullpen. He retired Bourn on a lineout and his fellow Cuban Tomás on a fly ball. Drury singled to right field but was stranded on a weak comebacker to the mound by Owings.

In the 10th inning, Enrique Burgos took the ball for the Diamondbacks, their fourth pitcher of the evening. He retired Phillips but soon ran into trouble. A meek Schebler bunt and Suárez’s single put two runners on base; a balk moved them 90 feet closer to the lead. Cabrera’s sacrifice fly, caught by Tomás in deep right field, scored Schebler with the go-ahead run. Suárez sought to advance to third but was thrown out by an impressive throw from Tomás. Crew chief Gerry Davis, behind the plate, requested a review, but the ruling was upheld.

The Diamondbacks’ turn in the 10th inning was also unorthodox. Pinch-hitter Phil Gosselin managed a seven-pitch walk from Iglesias. Segura’s fly ball in shallow left field could not advance the runner, but Iglesias’s wild pitch moved Gosselin to scoring position. The rattled Iglesias balked with Pollock at the plate. The Arizona center fielder hit a bouncer to second that was nimbly fielded by Phillips, who threw a perfect strike home. Gosselin, however, avoided Cabrera’s tag with a crafty wrap-around slide to tie the game. Goldschmidt’s single to left field appeared to augur a happy ending for the Diamondback fans, but Iglesias retired Castillo and Bourn to escape further harm.

Edwin Escobar took the hill in the 11th as the game passed the three-hour mark. It was the 24-year-old left-hander’s ninth appearance of the season, all in relief. The Venezuela native retired the first two batters, but Pedraza doubled to right field, putting a runner in scoring position for the dangerous Votto, who was intentionally walked for the second time in the game. Pinch-hitter Tony Renda hit a sharp grounder down the third base line, but Drury, perfectly positioned, stepped on the bag for the unassisted force out.

Blake Wood became Cincinnati’s fifth hurler. He secured a one-pitch groundout on Tomás’s comebacker to the mound, but Drury hit a soft groundball that bounced above third baset Drury hustled and advanced to second, a pivotal play as Owings, the next batter, grounded out to shortstop. The daring Drury took third and backup catcher Tuffy Gosewich, a .159 hitter, strode to the plate to pinch-hit. Gosewich finagled a five-pitch walk from Wood, whose disappointment was barely hidden as Segura came to bat.

Wood looked to the runners on the corners before he delivered his first pitch, an erratic throw that bounced and eluded Cabrera. The prepared Drury raced home and noted to reporters that “[y]ou have to be ready for a ball in the dirt and any time it goes to the backstop, you’ve got to score on that play.”1

In an instant, a pitchers’ duel that turned into a bizarre extra-innings affair ended in heartbreaking fashion for the Reds, who had outhit their hosts, 12-7. A sportswriter noted, “You may not necessarily want to see anything like this ever again, but you’ll probably remember this contest rather longer than most of the others played by the Diamondbacks this year.”2 The Reds’ strong pitching was undone by 13 men left on base; Arizona’s ability to escape jams ran out in the ninth and 10th innings.

Wood (5-3) took the loss and Escobar earned what turned out to be the sole victory of his two-season big-league career. Escobar started playing in Japan in 2017 and as of 2023 was still pitching there.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Trading Card Database.

Sources

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

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/ARI/ARI201608260.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2016/B08260ARI2016.htm

Notes

1 Jose M. Romero (Associated Press), “Diamondbacks Beat Reds on 2-Out Wild Pitch in 11th, August 26, 2016, https://apnews.com/article/83fb677c82814f50a098999aeba8b388.

2 Jim McLennan, “Diamondbacks 4, Reds 3: Of Braden, Balks, and Bad Bullpens,” SB Nation, August 27, 2016, https://www.azsnakepit.com/2016/8/27/12668822/diamondbacks-reds-recap.