Visiting teams had a 109-107 edge in extra-inning games this year in the second season starting extra innings with a runner on second base has been a permanent rule.
Visitors have a 477-465 edge in extra innings since the so-called “ghost runner” rule was first adopted as a pandemic alteration in 2020. From 2017 to 2019, home teams had a 312-294 advantage.
There were 162 games this season that went 10 innings, with home teams going 83-79. There were 31 that lasted 11 (visiting teams had 16-15 edge), 16 that went 12 (visiting teams 12-4) and five that went 13 (home teams 4-1).
Two games stretched to 14 innings: Toronto’s 5-3 victory over visiting Pittsburgh on May 31, and Colorado’s 5-4 victory at the Chicago White Sox on June 30.
The runner-on-second rule is used in extra innings during the regular season but not in the postseason.
Houston led majors with 35 pitch-clock violations
Houston led the major leagues with 35 pitch-clock violations and Washington’s Kyle Finnegan topped individuals with 11. Violations by pitchers, batters and catchers totalled 602, down from 1,048 in 2023, the first season of the timer. There were 465 by pitchers, 133 by batters and four by catchers, down from 747, 286 and 15. Washington was second with 31, followed by Arizona (30), the Los Angeles Angels and Milwaukee (29 each), Pittsburgh (27), the New York Mets (26) and Atlanta and the New York Yankees (25 each). Colorado, Kansas City and Oakland had the fewest at 10 apiece.
Finnegan was followed by Toronto’s Chris Bassitt (eight); Texas’s John Gray, Atlanta’s Reynaldo Lopez and the Mets’ Jose Quintana (seven each); and Cleveland’s Tyler Beede, Houston’s Framber Valdez and the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto (five each). Andy Pages of the Dodgers topped batters with five violations, followed by Washington’s Ildemaro Vargas (four), and Houston’s Yordan Alvarez, Philadelphia’s Nick Castellanos, Pittsburgh’s Oneil Cruz and Cincinnati’s Santiago Espinal (three each).
In the first year of the clock, Pittsburgh led pitcher violations with 41 and Philadelphia reliever Craig Kimbrel had the most individual violations with 13.
Atlanta swept away
SAN DIEGO Kyle Higashioka’s solo home run started a five-run rally against Max Fried with two outs in the second inning, and San Diego held on to sweep Atlanta with a win in Game 2 of their NL Wild Card Series on Wednesday night. Manny Machado added a two-run double with the bases loaded and Jackson Merrill, a top contender for NL Rookie of the Year, followed with a two-run triple as the sellout crowd of 47,705 – the largest in Petco Park history – roared. The Padres, who would love to win a World Series title in memory of late owner Peter Seidler, head up Interstate 5 to face Shohei Ohtani and the NL West rival and top-seeded Los Angeles Dodgers in a National League Division Series starting Saturday night. San Diego eliminated the 111-win Dodgers in a 2022 NLDS. Fried and Padres starter Joe Musgrove exited early with apparent injuries. Fried left after the second inning. He was hit on the left hip by a ball off the bat of Fernando Tatis Jr. two batters into his outing. Musgrove left with two outs in the fourth after throwing two slow curveballs to Matt Olson.
Astros determined to bounce back
HOUSTON For the first time since 2016, the Houston Astros failed to win a playoff game. And that’s not okay with general manager Dana Brown. A day after the Astros were swept by the Detroit Tigers in their AL Wild Card Series, stopping a streak of seven straight trips to the AL Championship Series, Brown detailed his top priority for the off-season. “First of all, one of the things we want to make sure we do is get back deep into the postseason,” he said Thursday. “That’s going to be our vision, that’s going to be our focus.” When it comes to fulfilling that goal, “we’re not taking anything off the table,” he said. The Astros, who won the World Series in 2017 and 2022, looked as if they might fall short of the playoffs altogether at the beginning of the season. They got off to a 7-19 start, falling 10 games behind Seattle in the AL West. But they finished with an 88-73 record and won their seventh division title in eight years, with the only exception coming in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.