Extra innings not exactly extraordinary

Associated Press

oakland, calif.

Josh Reddick rushed out of the ballpark, more eager than ever to get home from yet another extra-long work day.

Extra innings, that is. And a lot of them.

Who could blame Reddick for his swift departure? He had played the equivalent of a day-night doubleheader, minus the break in between. Oakland teammate Brandon Moss followed closely behind en route to the Coliseum exit Thursday night after a 3-2 victory in 18 innings over the New York Yankees that gave the A’s a hard-earned series sweep.

Clubs across the major leagues have been going the distance this year in some memorable, downright exhausting performances from coast to coast.

There were three extra-innings games Thursday alone — each lasting at least 13 innings — to bring the season total to 110.

“Is a lunar eclipse coming?” Reddick quipped. “I have no idea. Probably more of a coincidence than anything. That’s how the game goes sometimes.”

The topic of extra innings has been trending on Twitter, often with the hash tag freebaseball. Yes, many fans are getting far more baseball bang for their buck, despite being drowsy at work the next day.

The Marlins and Mets played for 20 innings — and 6 hours, 25 minutes — last Saturday in New York, the same day the Blue Jays needed nearly 51/2 hours to beat the Texas Rangers 4-3 in 18 innings at home in Toronto.

On Thursday, the AL West-leading Athletics remarkably won their second game this year of 18 or more innings. Oakland outlasted the AL West rival Los Angeles Angels in 19 innings on April 29, a game that ended at 1:41 a.m. on the West Coast.

The game time of 6 hours, 32 minutes, wasn’t far off from the time it would have taken for the Angels to return from the Bay Area to Orange County by car. Depending on traffic, of course.

There also was that wild 7-5, 16-inning win by the Chicago White Sox in Seattle last week. It went 5 hours, 42 minutes, and featured the teams combining for 10 runs and 10 hits in the 14th inning alone after the game was scoreless through nine.

Of the 110 extra-innings games played this season through Thursday, 14 had gone 14 or more innings. That was tied for the most 14-plus-inning games in any season through June 13 since 1920, according to STATS.

There were also 14 such games in 1976 and 1983. Since 1920, the 110 extra-inning games are second-most at this stage of the season behind 114 in 2011.

The A’s sure seem to have a knack for going long.

“Fortunately, we’re coming out on top of them,” Reddick said of Oakland, which has five walk-off wins after leading the majors with 14 last season.

Those victories sometimes come with a price, though.

After that 10-8, 19-inning win over the Angels, Oakland put three players on the disabled list — all with injuries sustained in the game: center fielder Coco Crisp, lefty starter Brett Anderson and outfielder Chris Young.

Yankees catcher Chris Stewart stayed in the game Thursday even after a hard collision at the plate to save a run in the 15th inning, and long after his body began telling him he had been down in a crouch for far too long.

“The energy was there because it was an exciting game,” Stewart said. “I started feeling a little sore there toward the end. After the 15th I think everybody was running on fumes, trying to do everything they could to win the game.”