There is a beautiful poetry to the first sounds of baseball each spring that extends far deeper than the superficial joy of baseball being back. The first ping of a metal bat at the high school down the road, or the season’s first thwack in a game of catch presents an escape into the annual lie we tell ourselves: baseball is omnipresent. One hundred sixty-two games is seemingly an eternity. After all, this is the sport without a clock. One single game theoretically could last forever. Or one inning. Or one at-bat.

Baseball time isn’t kept by a second hand but by a remarkably orderly sequence of events. Each batter gets three strikes, each team gets three outs an inning and each game gets nine innings. But, on occasion, randomness wreaks havoc on baseball’s natural order, and we’re rewarded with the chaos of an 18-inning game or a team batting around or a seemingly never-ending at-bat.

In tribute to the clock-less game and the natural chaos that follows, I looked at some of the most significant long plate appearances of the 2015 season. For the purposes of this piece, a long plate appearance is classified as having 10 pitches or more. Of the 183,628 plate appearances in the majors last summer, 755 (0.4 percent) fit this definition of long. We’re going to look at four of those 755: the one with the highest leverage index (LI), the longest at-bat by a pitcher, the one with the highest Win Probability Added (WPA), and, of course, the absolute longest plate appearance of 2015.

Highest Leverage

Troy Tulowitzki (RHB) vs. Andrew Miller (LHP) – 8/14/15

Inning: Bottom of the ninth

Score: NYY 4, TOR 3

Situation: Runners on second and third, two out

Pitches: 12

Time Elapsed: 7 minutes, 47 seconds

Leverage Index (LI): 8.23

From Aug. 2 to Aug. 13, the Blue Jays won 11 consecutive games while outscoring their opponents, 59 to 22. The remarkable streak gave the team sole possession of first place in the AL East for the first time since July 2, 2014. Their lead on the second-place Yankees was a tenuous half game when the Yankees came to Toronto on Friday, Aug. 14.

The Blue Jays appeared poised to widen their division lead when they took a 3-0 lead into the eighth inning, but a four-run offensive outburst for the Yankees put the Blue Jays’ streak in jeopardy. New York sent their reliable closer, Andrew Miller, to the mound with a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the ninth, but the Blue Jays’ prodigious offense had one more push in store. Russell Martin led off the inning with a flyout, but a walk to Chris Colabello followed immediately by a Kevin Pillar single kept the Jays right in the game. After a wild pitch and a Ben Revere strike out, Troy Tulowitzki stepped to the plate with runners on second and third, two outs, and first place in the AL East hanging in the balance.

Miller and Tulowitzki both made their major league debuts on Aug. 30, 2006. In the nine years since, Miller has faced 2,491 batters, and Tulowitzki has had 4,598 plate appearances, but in those thousands and thousands of plate appearances, neither player ever faced another situation with a leverage index (LI) as high as the 8.23 of this showdown. The sky-high LI in conjunction with the division race implications made this objectively one of the most exciting at-bats of the entire season. Frequently one of the joys of long plate appearances is the way tension and excitement gradually builds throughout the at-bat, but this one was electric from the first pitch.

Miller is a two-pitch pitcher, sporting a mid-90s fastball and wicked mid-80s slider. It quickly became apparent that Miller’s approach in this matchup was to force Tulo to hit his slide piece. The wild pitch he threw to the previous batter came on a fastball that badly missed his spot, and the three fastballs he threw to Tulo — pitches Nos. 2, 6, and 8 –- are easily visible well off the plate on the strike zone plot below.



In fact, on the last fastball Tulowitzki saw (pitch No. 8), catcher Brian McCann was set up inside, and Miller missed the spot by a matter of feet, not inches. For Tulo to beat McCann, he’d have to do it against Miller’s best pitch.

On the other nine pitches, Miller pounded sliders down and in. After watching the first slider, Tulowitzki fouled off each of the next seven sliders down the third-base line. Finally, on pitch No. 12, in front of a roaring crowd at Rogers Stadium, Miller induced a whiff for the final out, ended the Blue Jays’ streak, and restored the Yankees’ position atop the AL East.

Fun Fact: Miller and Tulowitzki have matched up four other times in their careers. Tulo saw more pitches in this one at-bat (12) than he did in those other four combined (11).

The Pitcher Batter

Clayton Kershaw (LHB) vs. Madison Bumgarner (LHP) – 9/29/15

Inning: Top of the fifth

Score: LAD 2, SFG 0

Situation: Nobody on, one out

Pitches: 13

Time Elapsed: 4 minutes, 50 seconds

As mentioned above, 0.4 percent of all MLB plate appearances in 2015 were long by our definition. Unsurprisingly, the rate was even lower with a pitcher in the batter’s box, as just 13 (0.2 percent) of the 5,372 plate appearances by pitchers went for double-digit pitches last season. The only one to last more than 11 pitches was this 13-pitch battle that ensued when Clayton Kershaw dug in against Madison Bumgarner during both pitchers’ final start of the regular season. Kershaw was the 862nd of 869 batters to face Bumgarner in 2015, and he was the first and only to take him to the tenth pitch of an at-bat.

After facing each other just three times in their careers prior to this season, 2015 brought a remarkable four Kershaw-Bumgarner marquee matches. Entering the fifth inning on Sept. 29, Bumgarner was the clear offensive winner of the showdowns with a line (1-for-7, four strikeouts) that appears unremarkable until noting his one hit off Kershaw was a home run. Kershaw, on the other hand, stepped into the batter’s box sporting an 0-for-8 with five Ks against Bumgarner this year.

A Hardball Times Update by Rachael McDaniel Goodbye for now.

The first three pitches gave little indication of the incredible plate appearance about to unfold, as Kershaw didn’t take the bat off his shoulder. He took a high fastball for a ball and then watched a front-door cutter and fastball down the middle to fall behind in the count, 1-2. Then the fun began.

Kershaw barely fouled off a low curveball to extend the at-bat and then ripped a high fastball down the left-field line for what looked to be a sure-fire double until it landed just foul. Bumgarner began peppering the low and outside part of the plate with cutters, but Kershaw laid off the first one, evening the count at 2-2 and then fouled off the next two. The Giants hurler attempted to switch it up with a curveball down and in, but once again Kershaw fouled it off, this time just inches shy of the first-base bag.

At this point, Bumgarner began to emote on the mound in clear frustration. He missed with a fastball down and away to run the count full, and then Kershaw fought off another fastball and cutter to stay alive until pitch No. 13. Finally, Bumgarner threw a cutter down and away that Kershaw rolled over on for a routine grounder to second.

The at-bat, though, was anything but routine. It ran Bumgarner’s pitch count from 77 to 89, contributing to his early exit after just 5-2/3 innings. Even though Bumgarner had the home run in their season-long battle and Kershaw closed the year 0-for-9 against Bumgarner with five strikeouts, there just might be a case to be made that this one at-bat made Kershaw the winner of the 2015 Kershaw-Bumgarner pitcher-batter showdowns.



Fun Fact: This was the longest at-bat by a pitcher since Mets hurler Orlando Hernandez struck out on the 13th pitch he saw from the Diamondbacks’ Claudio Vargas on June 8, 2006.

Highest WPA

Odubel Herrera (LHB) vs. Brad Boxberger (RHP) – 7/22/15

Inning: Bottom of the 10th

Score: PHI 4, TBR 4

Situation: Runner on second, two out

Pitches: 11

Time Elapsed: 7 minutes, 45 seconds

WPA: 0.40

The Rays entered play on July 22 a .500 team with a 14.5 percent chance to make the playoffs according to FanGraphs, but compared to the Phillies they were an absolute juggernaut. The Phillies were 30 games under .500 at 33-63 with robust 0.0 percent playoff odds. This 2008 World Series rematch served as little more than a reminder of how quickly the mighty can fall and the maddening ability of interleague play to make already meaningless games somehow feel even moreso. But meaningless games, like all games, are still subject to baseball’s intoxicating chaos.

After multiple lead changes, Rays second baseman Logan Forsythe tied the game up at four in the seventh inning with a home run off reliever Jake Diekman. In atypical fashion, the tie game brought the closers from both the home and away teams to the mound for the ninth inning. Jonathan Papelbon and Brad Boxberger secured a scoreless ninth and remained in the game into extra innings. The top of the tenth was a quick 1-2-3 inning for Papelbon, but the bottom of the tenth was not quite so smooth.

Boxberger gave up a single to Domonic Brown, followed by a successful sacrifice bunt from Carlos Ruiz. The next batter, Cody Asche, grounded out and failed to move the runner. This brought Philadelphia’s rookie center fielder Odubel Herrera to the plate with a runner on second and two outs.

Like Miller and many other relievers, Boxberger is primarily a two-pitch pitcher. He throws a mid-90s fastball and a change-up that sits around 80 mph and drops off the table out of the strike zone. Boxberger’s initial approach to Herrera began with the relatively simple strategy of alternating the two pitches.

Herrera took the first change-up down for a ball and then just missed a fastball right down Broad Street, fouling it straight back. A whiff on the next sinking change found Herrera down in the count, 1-2. Predictably, Boxberger went back to the fastball, but this time it was up in the zone, and Herrera fought it off. The next change-up missed low to even the count. After Herrera fouled off the next high fastball, Boxberger changed it up and stayed with the heat: two more high fastballs, two more fouls. For the ninth pitch, he went back to the low change-up that, you guessed it, Herrera fouled off.

At this point, Rays’ catcher Rene Rivera went out to the mound to talk over options with Boxberger. They appeared to reach a consensus, and with the next pitch Boxberger suddenly unleashed a curveball. Of the 1,096 pitches Boxberger threw in 2015, just 43 (3.9 percent) were curves. The one he threw to Herrera for the 10th pitch of the at-bat was his final curve of the season. As you can see on the plot below, Herrera, once again, fouled it off. Boxberger then went to the high fastball one final time, and Herrera lined it into the left-center field gap for a walk-off single.



In one of their few joyous moments of the season, the Phillies bench emptied to celebrate the rookie’s heroics. Even meaningless games in lost seasons can be rich with tension and joy.

Fun Fact: This was the first walk-off hit after 10-p;us pitches since Ryan Braun hit a walk-off home run on the 10th pitch he saw from Matt Lindstrom on Sept. 3, 2011.

The Longest

Asdrubal Cabrera (SHB) vs. Colby Lewis (RHP) – 8/15/15

Inning: Top of the sixth

Score: TEX 3, TBR 1

Situation: Runner on first, two out

Pitches: 15

Time Elapsed: 7 minutes, 34 seconds

Look at this strike zone plot.



The 11-, 12-, and 13-pitch at-bats we looked at above seemed like a lot of pitches, but this plot of a 15-pitch at-bat looks more like a close up view of a Georges Seurat painting than it does a depiction of an actual baseball event. According to research done by Paul Swydan, 15-pitch plate appearances occurred in 0.001 percent of all MLB plate appearances between 1988 and 2013. Of the 4.7 million plate appearances over that stretch, only 68 were exactly 15 pitches long, and just 38 more surpassed the 15-pitch mark. The showdown between Asdrubal Cabrera and Colby Lewis last August effectively represents the limits of baseball chaos in one at-bat.

After looking at two high-leverage situations and a unique scenario of a pitcher succeeding in a batter’s box, what’s striking about the Cabrera-Lewis chess match is how utterly ordinary it was. It was a mid-August game in Texas between two teams on the fringes of playoff contention. The visiting team was down two runs with a runner on first and two outs.

The question I set out to answer in analyzing this at-bat is, at what point did those watching in real time realize something extraordinary was occurring? Through the first six pitches, everything was dull and benign. Lewis got a called strike on his first-pitch fastball, then Cabrera fouled off four straight pitches before laying off a low two-seamer to get the count to 1-2.

The first time something even slightly intriguing occurred was on the seventh pitch. The slider, which you can see on the chart above, fell way out of the zone but fooled Cabrera enough to draw a check swing. At that point, the realization that another 10 degrees of bat rotation would’ve ended the inning appeared to heighten awareness of the at-bat in progress. Following the next pitch — another foul — the Texas broadcast crew noted it’s “a long at-bat” while Tampa Bay’s broadcasters referred to it as an “extended at-bat.” Around the same time, crowd noises began to intensify gradually.

The true turning point, though, was pitch No. 11. On the BrooksBaseball chart, that pitch is a few inches low, and the umpire correctly called it a ball. In real-time, however, a sinking two-seamer diving out of the zone right over the middle of the plate looked remarkably like a strike to Lewis, the broadcast crews, and the (obviously unbiased) Texas crowd. From that point forward, the suddenly aggrieved fans lived and died with each pitch, presumably committed to seeing the perceived injustice righted.

Cabrera did not give in. After he fouled off the 12th pitch, the Texas crew noted “[Lewis] has thrown a whole inning to one batter!” All they could muster after the next foul was a “Wow!” and a few giggles. After the 14th and final foul ball, the broadcast crew threw in the towel and showed this on the screen:



Whether it was a direct result of the Stormtrooper visual or just the limits of baseball absurdity finally being reached, Cabrera lined the next pitch into right field. Shin-Soo Choo made a casual shoestring catch in a perfectly mundane ending to a once-a-season type of at-bat.

Fun Fact: 2015 was the first season since 2005 without a single plate appearance longer than 15 pitches.

There is a video clip on MLB.com of each of the first three at-bats discussed here, but not the Cabrera-Lewis marathon. The otherwise ordinary 15-pitch at-bat was a moment easy to forget as soon as it ended. The tension and drama were fleeting and utterly irrelevant to the outcome of the game, but in retrospect it was a moment worth treasuring. The game of baseball holds the potential for these extraordinary moments when randomness, chance, and a barrage of foul balls can remind those involved that baseball’s time-keeping devices – strikes, outs, and innings – have all the power of a second hand with none of the reliability. As Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over,” and there’s simply no telling when that will be.

References & Resources