It was the longest game in the A’s or Angels history and definitely one for the record books. It wasn’t until 1AM when Brandon Moss finally hit a 2 run homer to end it. (The record for the longest game in Major League Baseball history was 8 Hours and 40 Minutes)
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From Chronicle Staff Writer Susan Slusser at the Coliseum:
By the end of the A’s game on Monday night, it was Tuesday morning, and Brett Anderson – scratched from the start Monday night– was on the mound. That’s how crazy things got in the longest game in Oakland A’s history and in Angels franchise history.
Brandon Moss finally ended things with two outs in the 19th inning, hitting a two-run homer 13 innings after his previous solo homer to give the A’s a 10-8 victory over the Angels. It was Moss’ third career walkoff homer, and it was the A’s second walkoff win in as many days. According to Elias Sports, it’s the second time in team history the A’s have overcome five-run deficits to win two games in a row – and the other time was in 1941.
“It’s one of those things where you just want to quit, but you don’t want to lose, so you keep fighting through it and hope they throw a ball into your bat,” Moss said. “I don’t even know how I hit it, I was so late on everything after the 10th inning.”
Moss did get the customary whipped-cream pie in the face, but Josh Reddick handed him the pie tin and Moss smacked it against his own face. Nutty stuff happens after 1 a.m.
“Reddick was too tired to pie me, so yeah, I did pie myself,” Moss said.
Anderson, making his first career relief appearance in a game that, again, he’d been scratched from, worked 5 1/3 innings, going longer than the man who’d replaced him Monday night. But even he wasn’t around until the end, his injured ankle tightening up on him, and neither were three injured outfielders – the A’s Coco Crisp and Chris Young and the Angels’ Peter Bourjos, all hurt running to first base.
The A’s are likely to need to make several moves Tuesday, including getting at least one outfielder (Michael Taylor can return if someone goes on the DL) and one pitcher, probably Evan Scribner. But there could be more moves than that if the team is especially depleted. Anderson said after the game that he doesn’t think he made his ankle any worse than it was and – at least right now – he thinks he can take his turn in the rotation the next time it comes around. “We’ll see how it feels tomorrow,” he said.
The game, at 6 hours and 32, beat the previous Oakland A’s time record by 32 minutes. The last time the A’s played 19 innings was August 10-11, 1972, against the White Sox. The longest previous Angels game was 6:06. The teams combined to throw 598 pitches.
“It should be a record,” Moss said. “It was exhausting.”
The Angels took the lead in the 15th inning when Anderson walked J.B. Shuck to force in Brendan Harris with two outs. But the A’s tied it back up in the bottom of the inning: Josh Donaldson reached on an error, Derek Norris walked and, after Young hit into a double play that erased Donaldson, Adam Rosales singled to center.
Crisp left the game after the 13th inning with a strained left hamstring, the same injury that knocked Angels center fielder Bourjos out of the game in extra innings. Young then appeared to be hurt after running to first base in the bottom of the 15th. He came out of the game with what was announced as a strained left quadriceps, DH Seth Smith moved to left and Yoenis Cespedes to center field, and the A’s lost the DH spot. Reliever Jerry Blevins had his first big-league at-bat, in the 18th, and struck out.
