Pinch-Hit-Walk-Off-Palooza

3 of the 6 games the Western teams played in on Tuesday resulted in pinch-hit, walk-off wins and I think we can probably call it a year of walk-offs. I mentioned about a month ago that this year featured the most walk-off home runs in baseball history and things haven’t slowed down in the time since. Just Tuesday, in the West, there were 2 walk-off HRs and a walk-off single. It was truly a day to stick around at the park until the end.

Walk-Offs

The first walk-off wasn’t a home run but it may have been the strangest as Madison Bumgarner was called upon to pinch hit for the Giants in the 12th. They had already used 21 players when Bumgarner came to the plate and smacked a one-strike pitch to left to score Gorkys Hernandez…San Francisco wins 5-4 over the Padres. The next walk-off was in the 9th inning for Arizona, and this one was a home run. Eduardo Escobar who came into the game in the 7th to pinch hit and then stayed at 3rd base stepped up with no outs in the 9th and drilled a 3-2 pitch over the right field wall to score the winning run to beat the Dodgers 4-3. Finally, in Seattle, the Athletics and Mariners were fighting tooth and nail and found themselves locked in an 8-8 tie heading into the bottom of the 11th. Robinson Cano flies out and Ben Gamel walks to set up a pinch-hit situation for Chris Herrmann. He knocked a one-strike pitch over the fence in right center to win the game 10-8.

As far as the playoffs go, Houston won their 100th game and earned the AL West Division Championship on Tuesday. The Dodgers lost ground to Colorado who also picked up a game on St. Louis. As of this morning, the Rockies were sitting half a game behind the Dodgers for the NL West lead and were ahead of St. Louis by half a game in the wildcard race.

Pitcher of the Day: Madison Bumgarner, SF – no pitching but hit the walk-off singel to lead the Giants to victory
Player of the Day: Freddy Glavis, SD 4–5, 2 2B, BB

Sports – West Coast Baseball – Pinch-Hit-Walk-Off-Palooza