The Winston-Salem Dash not only played and won a 20 inning game Wednesday night, they did it as part of a doubleheader. They started a split doubleheader with a 5-0 loss to the Myrtle Beach Pelicans before taking the marathon night cap 4-3. Baseball is always good for some oddities like this.
Let’s look at some of the weird numbers and occurrences from the day.
- The game was the second longest in Carolina League history, lasting five and a half hours.
- The Dash played 29 innings on the day totaling seven hours and forty six minutes. As Kenny Mayne would say, that’s probably a record or something.
- The Pelican pitching staff combined for 29 strikeouts while the Dash struck out 23. That’s 52 strikeouts combined.
- 80 Dash batters went to the plate, 71 for the Pelicans.
- 7 players took the golden sombrero. Chase Blackwood struck out a whopping six times. What is that, the super platinum sombrero? No one cares now, he had the game winning hit.
- Kyle Shelton, who started the game at second base, was the winning pitcher. He allowed just one hit in his inning of work.
- They played long enough for Eduardo Escobar actually to walk twice. They were both intentional walks, but it sounded good.
- 10 pitchers went to the mount for the Dash on the day. There are only 13 on the roster. Starters Nevin Griffith, Charlie Leesman and Nate Jones were the only ones not to appear.
In fairness to the Kannapolis Intimidators, they also played a 20 inning game April 20 and won 3-2, but they didn’t do it as part of a doubleheader so that’s not nearly as cool. In seriousness, it is really odd to see two 20 innings game in the White Sox organization this year. Maybe Birmingham is next?