Durbin and Bastardo Must Have Been Unavailable ...
Phillies had a starting pitcher once go 20 innings in a game.
Remember when Cliff Lee went 10 innings in a 1-0 loss to the Giants in San Francisco last April, and some people looked back at that as one of the causes of what seemed to be a less-than-stellar season from the lefthander? Well, those people would have had a field day with Joe Oeschger.
Ninety-four years ago today, Joey O managed to go 20 innings, matching Brooklyn's Burleigh Grimes frame-for-frame in what would end as a 9-9 tie at Baker Bowl.
Below are both pitchers' totals for that game, but a couple of things to point out first ... The 20 innings represented nearly one-fifth of the 102 2/3 innings Oeschger would toss that year. And his longest outing was yet to come. A year and a day later (May 1, 1920), Oeschger (by then with the Boston Braves) and another Brooklyn hurler (Leon Cadore) would co-set the still-standing — and never to be even thought about being broken — record of 26 innings pitched in one game. That one ended 1-1.
Here are the pitching lines from the April 30, 1919 game: