Roundtable: The best finish to a baseball game you’ve seen
There’s nothing better than a Game 7 victory. After months of hard-fought games, the season is reduced to one, tense-filled contest. The stakes are high and, unless you root for one of those teams, there’s nothing better than a Game 7 going down to the wire.
That was the case during this year’s NBA Finals. The Cleveland Cavaliers defeated the Golden State Warriors 93-89. The game was particularly tense during the final minutes, and it seemed like the Warriors could still tie things up even in the final seconds.
Inspired by that close and exciting finish, we asked the Big League Stew crew to discuss some of the best baseball finishes they’ve ever seen. Some of them involve walk-offs. Some of them involve bat-flips. All of them were incredibly exciting to experience.
Let’s get to it.
THE BAT-FLIP HEARD AROUND THE WORLD
The seventh inning may be a little early to qualify as true late-game madness, but given the stakes and the scene that unfolded, ALDS Game 5 in 2015 between the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers certainly rates as an all-time classic finish. Texas took a 3-2 lead in the top of the seventh on one of the strangest sequences you’ll ever see: catcher Russell Martin’s throw back to the mound ricocheted off Shin-Soo Choo’s bat and Rougned Odor came scampering home from third to score as the ball dribbled down the base line.
The Blue Jays’ season appeared to ending, but this game was far from over. Three straight errors by the Rangers to start the bottom of the inning gave the home team life and after Toronto tied it 3-3 came the signature moment: Jose Bautista’s unforgettable home run and accompanying bat flip that put the Blue Jays up 6-3. The rest of the game was a blur, with the benches clearing twice, and Toronto earning their spot in the ALCS. Sure, there wasn’t a walk-off hit or a lead-preserving defensive gem in the ninth, but I highly doubt I’ll ever experience a more intense game, especially at the end of the game, in the rest of my lifetime watching baseball. (Israel Fehr)
GIANTS’ LATE RALLY TAKES THEM TO THE WORLD SERIES
Baseball fans will remember Madison Bumgarner as the star of the 2014 postseason and the eventual World Series win for the San Francisco Giants. But when I think of the 2014 Giants, I think of Travis Ishikawa and Michael Morse — two unlikely heroes on a team that always found a way to win.
It was Game 5 of the National League Championship Series at AT&T Park. Not a must-win for the Giants, who had a 3-1 lead, but they certainly didn’t want to the series to go back to St. Louis. Early on, it looked like it would.
Bumgarner was on the mound, but the Cards had scored three runs off him early. Adam Wainwright was pitching for the Cardinals, so Wainwright vs. MadBum made the whole game feel bigger. In the eighth, with the Cardinals clinging to a 3-2 lead, Pat Neshek came in to pitch. He was an All-Star that season and had a 1.87 in the regular season. Morse had been injured late in the season and wasn’t playing much for the Giants. It seemed like Neshek had the advantage, but Morse found a way to lift a game-tying home run to left field. There may not have been a happier man in the world that night than Morse at that moment.
With the score tied 3-3, the Giants then had to face Michael Wacha in the ninth. With runners on, up came Ishikawa, a first baseman who the Giants had turned into a left fielder and, somehow, it worked. In that moment, watching from the press box, it just felt like the Giants had destiny on their side.
I pulled out my phone so I could record Ishiwaka’s at-bat, almost like the universe was telling me what was coming. Sure enough, Ishikawa hit a three-run walk-off homer that sent the Giants to the World Series.
Just one of those homers would have been a thrill. Both of them in back-to-back innings, it was quite a scene to witness. (Mike Oz)
ROCKIES BEAT THE PADRES ON MATT HOLLIDAY’S SLIDE IN 2007
This was a life-changing game for me (at least in a baseball sense), as it finally provided a happy ending for Rockies fans. It may have also been a history-changing game (again, in a baseball sense), because I believe it’s what started the wheels turning for what we now know as the wild-card play-in game.
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Perhaps I’m overstating its importance, but it felt then and still feels like the greatest single baseball game I’ve ever seen. It was a nearly five-hour roller coaster ride of emotions that saw both teams seemingly on the verge of securing victory on more than one occasion, only for the script to be completely flipped. It was basically the ultimate Coors Field game, only on the biggest stage with win-or-go home stakes.
Fittingly, it ended in controversial fashion on the infamous Matt Holliday chin-first slide at home plate. To this day, no one knows for sure if Holliday actually touched home plate. In some sinister way, that mystery brings me great joy while securing this game’s place in my heart. (Mark Townsend)
THE PHILLIES RALLY LATE AGAINST JONATHAN BROXTON
Game 4 of the 2009 NLCS had an incredible finish. The Phillies were facing the Dodgers, and it was an important game. The Phillies were up 2-1 in the series, but the Dodgers were on the verge of tying it up. They led 4-3 going into the ninth inning of game 4, and that’s when Dodgers skipper Joe Torre decided to put in his trusted closer Jonathan Broxton. Brox and the Phillies had some significant history. In fact, the Dodgers had been in that exact same position in game 4 of the 2008 NLCS just a year before when Matt Stairs “ripped one into the night” off Broxton, giving the Phillies the lead. So when Torre put Brox in again, I stood in front of my TV and watched and waited.
Broxton faced Stairs, and walked him on four pitches. Then he hit Carlos Ruiz with a pitch, and I stopped standing in front of my TV and started jumping up and down in front of it. When Jimmy Rollins came to the plate, I thought “This is going to happen. This has to happen.” I was barely capable of coherent thought when on the third pitch,Rollins lined the ball to the gap in right field. The bases cleared, the Phillies won, and I screamed so hard I didn’t have a voice for two days. (Liz Roscher)
JAYSON WERTH DELIVERS IN A BIG WAY IN GAME 4
When Jayson Werth signed with the Washington Nationals in 2011, it sent shockwaves through the baseball community. The Nationals had promising young players and were expected to contend soon, but they still seemed a few years away from the playoffs. Werth saw something in the organization, or maybe saw the huge seven-year, $126 contract, and decided Washington was the place for him.
Considering Werth had come from the dominant Philadelphia Phillies, he was immediately branded as the guy who would help turn the sad-sack Nationals into a winner. No one else on the team had Werth’s experience. He would teach the organization how to win games, both on and off the field.
It was fitting, then, that Werth hit perhaps the most significant home run in Nationals history. With the team down 3-1 in the 2012 NLDS, Werth saved them from elimination. In the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 4, he smacked a walk-off home run against Lance Lynn.
It was an incredibly high stakes game, and one of the most amazing ends to a game I’ve experienced in person. Oh, it also helps that I called the home run a few minutes before it happened. I’m going to take credit for that. (Chris Cwik)
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Chris Cwik is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik
