There was no plane fueled up and waiting on the tarmac. When this one ended after midnight yesterday in Moosic, Pa., after a string of futile at-bats in the 16th … the 17th … the 18th … the 19th, buses would transport the Yankees’ Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Railriders to Louisville, Ky., and the Tigers’ Mud Hens affiliate back to Toledo, Ohio, for another Triple-A game the next night.
The moods of those all-night trips were cast when designated hitter Randy Ruiz led off the bottom of the 20th inning with a line-drive, opposite-field homer to right, giving SWB the marathon 2-1 victory at 12:32 a.m. after the 7:05 p.m. start.
“You saw fatigue set in with the swings you see at the end of the game,” said Toledo manager Phil Nevin, who added he never participated in so long a game in his 12 seasons as a player in the majors. “Pitchers are at an advantage. Hitters are trying to do way too much, trying to end it with one swing.”
Before the one swing from Ruiz — a 35-year-old minor league journeyman out of The Bronx’s Monroe High School — the veteran-laden RailRiders had owned the bulk of the chances in bonus baseball, racking up 20 hits. But they went 3-for-17 with runners in scoring position, botched a no-out, based-loaded rally in the 10th and grounded into double plays in four straight innings from the 12th to 15th. After a Mud Hen was cut down at the plate in the top of the 16th, just one combined baserunner reached until the walk-off.
“It felt like a battle of attrition,” said Nevin, who developed a winking sort of sympathy with opposing manager Dave Miley. “As I’d go out to coach third, we’d make faces like, ‘What’s going to happen next?’ ”
Of the SWB relievers who piled up 13 scoreless innings and 15 strikeouts, Nevin highlighted a pair of lefties: 25-year-old offseason waiver claim Josh Spence (“he’s just flipping it up there … not breaking 80 [mph]”) and 30-year-old June pickup Mike Zagurski (“good fastball, good slider, able to get righties, too”).
A pair of native Cubans made impressions in the field: center fielder Adonis Garcia, 28, was described an “aggressive swinger” who made a terrific catch at the top of the wall in extras and third baseman Ronnier Mustelier, also 28, showed the ability to “pull fastballs and go the other way” from the right side of the plate.
Catching prospect J.R. Murphy went the distance, reaching base five times in eight trips and erasing two potential base stealers, including one in the 13th.