July 15, 2005: Mike Stanton’s walk-off balk sinks the Nationals in Milwaukee

Fans in the US capital were thrilled when Major League Baseball announced that the Montreal Expos were relocating to Washington for the 2005 season. Yet sports commentators expected more futility from the franchise that had lost 95 games the previous season. Baseball Prospectus surveyed its staff writers, and all 12 of them predicted that the newly christened Washington Nationals would finish last in National League’s Eastern Division.1

The Nationals hoped to become competitive through the offseason acquisition of players like José Guillén, Esteban Loaiza, and Vinny Castilla, who had led the league in RBIs in 2004. The enthusiasm of Washington fans was buoyed when the Nationals surprised sportswriters by entering the month of July in first place. A three-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs to begin July left the Nationals 19 games over .500 with a 5½-game lead in the NL East.

In Milwaukee on July 15, a strange, rarely seen conclusion to an extra-inning game against the Brewers was a sign of the misfortune the Nationals would face for much of the rest of the season.

Milwaukee entered this series with a 42-46 record, occupying fourth place in the NL Central Division. The Brewers’ front office hoped that after four straight seasons with more than 90 losses, the club would find its footing.

Washington, which had lost the opener of the four-game series a night earlier, still retained a 2½-game lead over the Atlanta Braves. This was only the second game for Preston Wilson in a Nationals uniform. Washington had acquired the 30-year-old outfielder in a trade with the Colorado Rockies.2

Cuban-born Liván Hernández took the mound at Miller Park for the Nationals that evening, sporting an impressive 12-3 record. Right-hander Ben Sheets was Milwaukee’s starter with a 5-6 record.

In the top of the first inning, Washington’s batters went to work. Leadoff hitter Brad Wilkerson slugged a home run to right field, giving the Nationals a 1-0 lead. José Vidro, the second baseman, sliced a double to left. Sheets retired the next two batters, but left fielder Ryan Church stroked a single to right field and Vidro scored Washington’s second run.

The Nationals’ lead didn’t last long. With one out in their first, Brewers rookie second baseman Richie Weeks singled and stole second base. Lyle Overbay doubled Weeks home and went to third when shortstop Christian Guzmán made an errant throw on a groundball by Carlos Lee. Geoff Jenkins’ fly out to center field was deep enough for Overbay to tag up and reach home. The score was knotted at 2-2.

Hernández and Sheets buckled down during the next few innings, retiring 12 of 13 hitters in the second and third innings. In the bottom of the third, Milwaukee manager Ned Yost stepped out of the dugout to argue a third-strike call on Weeks. After a testy exchange, home-plate umpire Bob Davidson tossed Yost.3 It was Yost’s first ejection of the season and one of two heated arguments involving Davidson that night.4

In the top of the fourth inning, one-out singles by Castilla and Brian Schneider created a scoring opportunity for the Nationals, but two groundball outs ended the threat.

Washington regained the lead in the fifth. Vidro hit a ground-rule double to left-center with one out. Sheets enticed José Guillén to ground out to third, but Wilson slapped a double down the left-field line. Vidro scored to give Washington a 3-2 advantage.

In the bottom of the fifth, Chad Moeller roused Milwaukee fans by knocking a long fly ball to right-center field that struck the yellow padding along the top of the wall. Although some Brewers faithful felt it was a homer, the umpire crew convened to discuss the hit and ruled it a double – a decision that reflected Miller Park’s ground rules.5

With nobody out and Moeller on second base, Milwaukee’s coaches wanted Sheets to bunt Moeller to third. Before that could happen, Washington’s defense seized an opportunity. Moeller strayed too far from second base, and catcher Schneider caught a pitch, sprang to his feet, and quickly fired to shortstop Guzman, who caught Moeller off the bag.

In the home half of the seventh inning, pinch-hitter Wes Helms singled with one out, and pinch-runner Trent Durrington took his place on first base. Moments later, Hernández fired to first to pick off Durrington. A Wisconsin sportswriter complained that umpires erred by not calling a balk when the Washington right-hander allegedly bent “his left (lead) knee” toward home plate before making his pickoff throw.6

Sheets was done after seven innings, and the Brewers sent Ricky Bottalico to the mound in the eighth. Wilson led off with a single, moved to second on a bad throw from right fielder Jenkins, and took third on Ryan Church’s groundout. Castilla, the next batter, flied out to right. Wilson tagged from third base, but Jenkins threw a strike to catcher Moeller, who applied the tag. It remained a one-run game.

With Hernández still on the mound and well over 100 pitches, the bottom of the eighth inning started quietly for Milwaukee. Weeks and Overbay grounded out, and that brought up Carlos Lee, who had been selected as an All-Star for the first time in his career. Hernández, adept at changing speeds, nearly retired Lee on a 61-mph blooper pitch, but the Brewers left fielder managed to foul it off.7 Lee slugged the next delivery, Hernández’s 130th of the game, for a home run to deep left – his 23rd of the season. This tied the score, 3-3, and the crowd of 40,690 at Miller Park roared its approval.

In the top of the ninth inning, new pitcher Derrick Turnbow retired the Nats one-two-three. Then Washington called it a night for Hernández and inserted Héctor Carrasco to pitch the bottom of the ninth. With one out, Carrasco walked Russell Branyan, but he got Moeller to ground into a double play.

The Nationals again went down in order in the 10th. In the bottom of the inning, Luis Ayala replaced Carrasco on the mound. Milwaukee pinch-hitter Chris Magruder greeted him with a double to left-center. Leadoff hitter Brady Clark bunted Magruder to third. Ayala intentionally walked Weeks, putting runners on the corners with one out. With left-handed-hitting Overbay stepping into the batter’s box, the Nationals countered by calling on left-hander Mike Stanton.

The 38-year-old veteran was making his debut for Washington, having been signed as a free agent after the New York Yankees released him earlier in the month. Entering the game, Stanton had committed only one balk in his previous 263 appearances, dating back to the 2001 season. But on this evening, Stanton took the mound, looked in for his sign, and brought his hands to the set position. Immediately after, he began a move toward first base, and first-base umpire Paul Schrieber raised his arm and pointed to Stanton, calling a balk. Magruder strolled home with the winning run as the Brewers won, 4-3.

Stanton quickly moved toward home to join his batterymate in arguing the decision. Frank Robinson, Washington’s manager, also gave Schrieber an earful. But their protests were to no avail. This game produced only the 14th walk-off balk in National or American League history – and the first such outcome involving a Washington or Milwaukee team. (The Expos, forerunners of the Nats, lost a 1973 game on a walk-off balk.8)

Robinson was still upset after the game. He showed reporters a replay of Stanton’s delivery on a video monitor inside the Nats’ clubhouse and then criticized the call. “How in the world do they think a guy as experienced as Mike Stanton is going to come into that situation and fool around with some kind of balk move?” said Washington’s skipper.9  

Calling a balk at that point, Robinson said, was like a pro basketball referee “with one-tenth of a second on the clock” calling a touch foul that “sends the guy to the free throw to win the game.” He added: “This [game] shouldn’t have ended up like that.”10

There was little solace for the Nationals next morning to read the assessment from an Associated Press reporter: “The replays appeared to show it was indeed a legal step toward first base.”11 It was one of four walk-off losses for the Nationals in July. By the end of the month, Washington had fallen to second place, five games behind the Braves.

For the remainder of 2005, the Brewers were within five games of .500. Milwaukee finished the 2005 season with the same 81-81 record as the Nationals.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Jim Sweetman and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Mike Stanton, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/MIL/MIL200507150.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2005/B07150MIL2005.htm

Notes

1 “Preseason Predictions: NL Staff Picks, 2005,” Baseball Prospectus, April 1, 2005, https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/3888/preseason-predictions-nl-staff-picks-2005/.

2 Thom Loverro, “Bowden Pulls Off a Steal,” Washington Times, July 16, 2005: C1.

3 Arnie Stapleton (Associated Press), “Balk in 10th Gives Brewers Victory,” Eau Claire (Wisconsin) Leader Telegram, July 16, 2005: 14.

4 Arnie Stapleton, “Brewers Win One in the 10th on a Balk,” Green Bay Press-Gazette, July 16, 2005: 15.

5 Vic Feuerherd, “Brewers Walk Home Following Last Call,” Wisconsin State Journal, July 16, 2005: 18.

6 Feuerherd.

7 Nathaniel Stoltz, “Livan Hernandez and the 66-Mile Curve of Doom,” Bleacher Report, July 10, 2009, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/215326-livan-hernandez-and-the-66-mph-curve-of-doom; Feuerherd, “Brewers Walk Home Following Last Call.”

8 Adam Gilfix, “Talking Balk: All Walk-Off Balks in MLB History,” Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, June 19, 2015, https://harvardsportsanalysis.org/2015/06/talking-balk-all-walk-off-balks-in-mlb-history/. 

9 Barry Svrluga, “Nationals Lose on a Balk in the 10th,” Washington Post, July 16, 2005: E8.

10 Associated Press, “Brewers Tip Nationals with Balk-Off Run,” West Bend (Wisconsin) Daily News, July 16, 2005: 11.

11 “Brewers Tip Nationals with Balk-Off Run.”