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Pat Murphy unpacks Brewers 15, A’s 14 in Vegas: ‘Craziest game I’ve ever been a part of’

by Admin••0

What a week that was. Two baseball teams did something in Las Vegas that even the Raiders never did. … Then there was the guy who got a hit in two games on the same day 750 miles apart. … And did you hear about the world famous leadoff hitter who homered in the first inning but did not hit a leadoff home run?

It’s all coming right up in the latest edition of the Weird and Wild column. So let’s kick it off by warbling, in six-million part harmony …

Viva Las Vegas

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? Not on our watch.

So on Monday, the Brewers and A’s rolled into Las Vegas — future home of your nomadic Athletics — and spun the roulette wheel for four hours and 14 minutes of the wackiest baseball ever witnessed. Sadly, the Griswold family wasn’t on hand to tell you all about it. But luckily, the Weird and Wild column is here for you.

We’re talking about: Brewers 15, A’s 14 … in a game in which everyone homered except Nicolas Cage … and 116 hitters made it to home plate … and it took 441 pitches by 14 pitchers to make it to the finish line … and there were 16 ABS challenges along the way … and a guy whomped a 463-foot homer while sitting on his derriere … and another guy hit a popup that mysteriously turned into a game-tying extra-inning bomb … and the A’s launched seven home runs, struck out 20 Brewers hitters and they lost.

“Craziest game I’ve ever been a part of,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy told us.

And honestly, that quote and that little summary haven’t even scratched the surface of this kooky game. So as Clark Griswold put it so aptly in “Vegas Vacation,” It’s all part of the act, Russ. Which means it’s time for an all-time nutty Weird and Wild report on this game.

The 15-14 Game! In Game 4 of the 1993 World Series, the Blue Jays and Phillies played the most famous 15-14 game in history. An American League relief pitcher (Al Leiter) hit a double in that one, if that gives you any idea how it went. This game in Vegas was only the second 15-14 game won by a road team in the 33 years since the Blue Jays won that monstrosity in Philly. The Brewers won the other one, too (Aug. 17, 2019, in Washington).

34 hits, 11 homers and the losing team scored two touchdowns! You don’t see that much. This was only the fourth game since 1900 with that many hits, that many homers and a losing team that put at least 14 runs on the board. The others were that 2019 Brewers game and two Wrigley Field windblown classics — the 23-22 slugfest in 1979 and Cubs 16, Reds 15 on July 28, 1977.

The A’s put up seven homers and 14 runs — and they lost! Does that seem hard? Let’s go with yes. We’re closing in on a quarter-million games in the major leagues since 1900. Only one other team, in all those games, ever fired off that many runs and that many home runs and lost: Miguel Sanó’s 2021 Twins, in a 17-14 loss to the Tigers.

WEIRD AND WILD: “So Murph, when was the last time any team you were managing, coaching or associated with gave up 14 runs and seven bombs — and won?”

PAT MURPHY: “And struck out 20. Don’t forget that.”

W&W: “Right. And struck out 20. So when was the last time you lost a game like that?

MURPHY: “Never.”

W&W: “Not even playing Little League in Syracuse? Not in the minors? Not in college?”

MURPHY: “No. Never. I can’t even tell you (what this was like). It was amazing.”

Struck out 20 — and gave up 14 runs! All right, since he brought that up … how many other pitching staffs have ever K’d 20 but still somehow allowed 14 runs in the same game? Ha-ha-ha. Zero, of course.

No other team has even struck out 20 and given up 10 runs. And the most runs allowed by any other team that punched out 20 in a game that went 12 innings or shorter is only six! But the Brewers K’d 20, coughed up 14 … and they won.

Welcome to Vegas, everybody! Have we mentioned this was the first big-league game ever played at Las Vegas Ballpark, normally the home of the Triple-A Las Vegas Aviators? So that went smoothly.

Did you know that there has been only one other game in history with that many runs (29) and that many hits (34) at a stadium that was not one of the “normal” big-league home parks? London Stadium brought us that hit-a-palooza in 2019: Yankees 17, Red Sox 13, with 37 hits flying all over the U.K.

And only one other “alternate” site ever hosted an 11-homer game. That was the 2023 homerfest at Mexico City’s Alfredo Harp Helú Stadium, where Nelson Cruz’s Padres lanzado-ed six bombs and Brandon Crawford’s Giants aporreado-ed five. Thanks to Baseball Reference’s Kenny Jackelen for those wild tidbits.

“I can’t even tell you (what this was like),” Pat Murphy said of the 15-14 game. “It was amazing.”(Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)

Both teams blew four-run leads — in the seventh inning or later! This was a game in which no lead (literally) was safe. The A’s took a 9-5 lead into the seventh. That one didn’t make it past the ninth. Then the Brewers took a 14-10 lead in the 10th. That one was gone by the bottom of the inning.

Kenny Jackelen dug into that plot line, too — and found only four other games in the Baseball Reference play-by-play database (which covers nearly every game back to 1910) in which each team blew a lead that large that late. Incredibly, one of those was just last year (Cubs 13, Diamondbacks 11, at the Weird/Wild capital of baseball, Wrigley).

Both teams scored four times in the 10th! In a related development, each team put up a four-spot in the 10th inning of this game — an inning that featured 14 hitters, two ghost runners, three home runs and other assorted weirdness we will cover. According to Baseball Reference’s Katie Sharp, it was only the sixth game since 1910 in which each team scored matching run totals of four or more in any extra inning.

The record is five apiece, by the 2013 White Sox and Mariners in the 14th inning of a game that was 0-0 through the first 13 innings!

Jonah Heim hit a home run that broke Statcast! You have to watch this. There were two outs in the bottom of the 10th. The Brewers were hanging onto a 14-13 lead, one out from victory in Vegas. Then Heim lofted the pop-up homer that broke Statcast.

“The tying home run was 94 mph (off the bat), and it’s a home run in zero parks,” Murphy told us, still trying to digest it all two days later. “I mean, 94 mph exit velocity — balls don’t leave the yard at that.”

He is not exaggerating. According to Statcast, there have been more than 2,000 fly balls hit to right field this season at 94 mph exit velocity or softer. None of the others were home runs.

Now throw in that the launch angle on that home run was 48 degrees. The league-wide batting average on fly balls and popups to right, at launch angles of 48 degrees or greater, computes to .020. None of those were homers, either. Only in … Vegas!

He hit a bumpus from his rumpus! But I’m not sure if that Heim homer was even the most what-just-happened home run of that 10th inning, because in the top of the 10th, the Brewers’ William Contreras hit this one.

You’ve heard that expression, swinging from his, um, keister? Well, Contreras swung from his caboose — and landed on it. And this ball still went 463 feet.

MURPHY: “I’m telling you. Just anything — any hard contact with any elevation — was a homer. It was amazing.”

But wait. There’s more! OK, three more of my favorite Vegas nuggets:

• A catcher (Shea Langeliers) hit a 483-foot leadoff home run!

• The A’s hadn’t lost a “home game” in which they scored 14 runs (or more) since 1961. Which means they lost zero games like that in 57 seasons in Oakland. But they lost their first “home game” of the Vegas era. (Hat tip: Josh Dubow of the Associated Press.)

• And the time of this game couldn’t have been more fitting: 4:14 — which is also the area code in Milwaukee (414). (Hat tip: Brewers media relations.)

W&W: “Can you believe the time of game was the area code of Milwaukee? What are the odds of that?”

MURPHY: “That’s what I’m saying. Craziest game I’ve ever been a part of.”

When he’d finished laughing, Murphy had another thought:

“I’m sure there’s interesting stuff we haven’t even discovered,” he said, “stuff where, when we look back at this game, you’ll just be, like, wow.”

W&W: “OK, I’ve got one for you. Your game was tied, 14-14. Did you know there wasn’t a single Raiders game last season in Vegas where the game was tied, 14-14, at any point?”

MURPHY: Thinks about that for a moment, then says: “Exactly.”

What … a … game. I know what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, but I’m pretty sure some of the baseballs that were hit in Vegas that night came down in Lake Tahoe. So how can we explain this madcap evening of baseball?

I threw that question at Pat Murphy. Was it the heat? Was it the dry heat? Was it the elevation? Was it the vibes of Vegas? The ghost of Elvis? He was OK with all of that … except for one thing.

“Elvis,” he said, “is off the hook.”

This week’s trivia question

Time for another edition of Weird and Wild trivia. On his way to the 3,500-Strikeout Club, Max Scherzer has rolled up eight seasons of 200 strikeouts or more, tying him with Justin Verlander for the most among active pitchers.

Five other active starters have had at least five 200-strikeout seasons. Can you name them?

(Answer at the bottom of the column.)

Stuff I can’t believe happened this week

THEY DIDN’T PRACTICE THIS IN SPRING TRAINING — Seen many 7-5-3 double plays lately? Well, if you haven’t, we can help with that. Check out this wild (and also weird) double-play special “turned” by those Oklahoma City Comets last weekend.

POSITION IMPOSSIBLE — Giants rookie Jonah Cox had already gotten his first career hit off one position player (Rockies catcher Brett Sullivan). So of course, last weekend, he hit his first career homer off another position player (Cubs catcher Carson Kelly).

Who out there can guess how many other rookies in the expansion era (since 1961) have ever had their first hit and homer off two different position players? Right you are. That would be zero.

TIME TRAVEL — Here’s my advice for Josh Rojas: You need to read up on the life and times of Joel Youngblood (aka, the only man to get big-league hits in two different cities in the same day).

Why? Because last Thursday (June 4), Rojas started his day by going 1-for-3 as the leadoff hitter for the Omaha Storm Chasers in a noon minor-league game in Columbus, Ohio.

Ten and a half hours later, he was slapping a game-winning two-run single in the big leagues, as a ninth-inning pinch hitter for the Royals in Minnesota. So how is it possible to cram your name into two box scores in two games 750 miles apart? Easy. It’s … baseball!

This Week in Useless Info

TARGET PRACTICE — Sam Antonacci, human dart board, has been in the major leagues for only seven weeks. But he has already displayed a unique talent for gesticulating himself in the way of 15 hit-by-pitches. Which means he’s rapidly ascending the Weird and Wild column’s ranks of favorite players.

So it’s our duty to alert you: This man is almost a lock to make all kinds of HBP history. And what kind of history is that? Only this:

No rookie has ever been plunked by 20 pitches before the All-Star break. But with a month left before the break and Antonacci already just five away, how can he miss?

But there’s more: He doesn’t have to stop at rookie HBP history. Only five times has any hitter, with any amount of experience, gotten drilled 20 times or more before the break:

HBP     HITTER  YEAR

21 

Jason Kendall 

1997

20

Josh Harrison 

2017

20

Shin-Soo Choo

2013

20

Brandon Guyer 

2016

20

Jason Kendall   

1998

(Source: Baseball Reference / Stathead)

Does he have a shot at passing Jason Kendall? Why not? He just finished a streak of getting nailed by a pitch in four games in a row. So remember that name: Sam Antonacci. Chasing a record not even Ohtani has set.

3 TIMES 2 EQUALS WRIGLEY HISTORY — I’m not sure what got into the Giants offense over the last week or so. But they’ve put up so many crooked numbers lately, you’d think they somehow got themselves mixed up with the 1961 Yankees.

We’ll have lots of Giants weirdness and wildness coming in this column. But let’s start with their wild 18-3 wipeout of the Cubs last weekend at Wrigley, because they did something amazing:

Three Giants hit two home runs in that game: Matt Chapman, Willy Adames and Casey Schmitt. And why would we bring that up?

Because Wrigley Field, as you might have noticed, has been around for over a century. And would you believe that only one other team has pulled off that trifecta there in all those years?

Spoiler alert: That team would not be the Cubs.

Nope, it was Lance Berkman’s 2000 Astros. They did it on Sept. 9 that year. The multi-homer games came from Berkman, Richard Hidalgo and (of course) Tim Bogar (who hit only 22 other home runs over nine big-league seasons). Not pictured: The Cubs!

PUT YOUR SOX ON — Speaking of home runs and Chicago, the White Sox stopped by Philadelphia last weekend — and Phillies outfielder Brandon Marsh hit a home run against them in all three games of a three-game series.

I’m dedicating this note to my old friend — the late, great Doug (Kernels) Kern. Because Doug loved this sort of thing, I looked up the last Philadelphia player to hit a home run in three straight games of the same series against the White Sox. And it happened as recently as …

Um, 91 years ago — when Jimmie Foxx, of Connie Mack’s 1935 Philadelphia A’s, went deep against the Sox on Aug. 19, then again in both games of an Aug. 20 doubleheader.

HEAVYWEIGHTS AT THE TOP — When Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Kyle Schwarber were the two leadoff hitters in Toronto on Tuesday, I had some friends who decided I had no choice but to let them know if these were the two heaviest leadoff men in any game in history.

OK, here’s the first thing they need to know: You can’t believe the listed weights of any player who ever lived. But just for the record, Baseball Reference lists Vlad Jr. at 245 pounds and Schwarber at 229. And I’ll take the over, if you know what I mean.

But now here’s the second thing everyone needs to know: I asked my friend Katie Sharp, from Baseball Reference, to look into this. And if we’re going by listed weights …

Vlad and Schwarber only rank 77th on that list, at 474 combined listed pounds!

The record holders beat the Vlad/Schwarber tag team by an impressive 56 (listed) pounds. They would be Aaron Judge, at 282, and Oneil Cruz, at 248, in a Yankees-Pirates game on Sept. 21, 2022. That might not get those hulksters a shot at playing tackle in a Giants-Steelers game. But it got them into this goofy record book anyway.

WALK THE WALK-OFF — I don’t know how the rest of White Sox phenom Braden Montgomery’s career is going to go. But here’s how Day One went:

That’s what it looks like when a guy hits a walk-off home run in his very first day of big-league life. So cool. But hang with us. It’s even cooler than that.

Only four other players have ever hit a walk-off home run in their big-league debut. You know what those four didn’t do? Hit a lead-flipping walk-off homer with their team one out from losing.

You know who did do that? Did anyone out there scream: Braden Montgomery? Excellent guess.

KC AT THE BAT — You know what Kody Clemens did last week? That would be this.

Yes, he bopped two home runs that day against the Royals And what’s so Weird and Wild about that? Well, my “initial” thought was this:

That’s a two-homer game by KC … against KC.

NAME THAT TUNE — When you write a column called “Weird and Wild,” people tend to think of you in the weirdest, wildest moments imaginable. So when Jeeho Yoo, the great Korean baseball scribe, saw this thing unfold Wednesday in a Reds-Padres game in San Diego, of course he immediately sent me this.

I was almost in tears when I saw that, because it’s moments like this that make the 489,000 words I pound out in this column every week worth pounding. We had a Singer (Brady). He had a Song (Sung-Moon) to work on. Does it get any more weirdly, wildly and melodically beautiful than that?

So here’s a toast to Jeeho. And here’s another to the Padres’ legendary scoreboard artist, Jeff Praught, for seeing that matchup coming, doing the research and making sure it made it to a scoreboard near you.

But before we move on, I must admit I spent way too much time thinking about the eight players I would have added to my roster — and put on the field behind Singer — just to make this moment more magical. And musical. So here they come:

Kumar Rocker
Matt Sinatro
Elvis Andrus
Shane Bieber
Jo Adell
Prince Fielder
Jim (Glove Me Two Times) Morrison
Carlos Santana

I can’t say for sure if any of them can carry a tune. But does it even matter? They just helped me fill up this wacky little column, all by playing …

Baseball!

This Week in Strange But Trueness

Kyle Schwarber, MLB’s leader in home runs, had his first four-single game. (Cole Burston / Getty Images)

THE FANTASTIC FOUR — I don’t know what nutty thought entered your mind when Phillies masher Kyle Schwarber authored the first four-single game of his career last weekend. But here’s the nutty thought that I couldn’t get out of my mind:

How many guys in history ever had a four-homer game before their first four-single game?

I then dragged one of my favorite co-conspirators, Baseball Reference’s Kenny Jackelen, into that vital research project. And here it comes — the list of the six men who could make that claim … and the gap between their first four-homer game and first four-single game:

PLAYER  4-HR game 4-1B game  GAP

Mike Schmidt   

4/17/1976 

4/12/1986

10 years*

Mike Cameron

5/2/2002

8/24/2008    

6+ years

Shawn Green 

5/23/2002   

8/8/2007

5+ years

Mark Whiten 

9/7/1993

4/9/1997 

3 1/2 years

Rocky Colavito 

6/10/1959

6/24/1962 

3 years

Kyle Schwarber 

8/28/2025 

6/5/2026 

281 days

 (*almost)

ONE MORE FOR THE SHOH — As usual, Shohei Ohtani led off for the Dodgers last Saturday. Also as usual, he hit a home run in the first inning that night.

Ready for the Strange But True part? Here it comes:

But he did not hit a leadoff homer.

Wait. What? That can happen, you know — when your team scores nine runs in the first inning (meaning the leadoff hitter’s turn came around again and you know the rest).

According to Katie Sharp, it’s only the second time in Dodgers history that the leadoff man went deep in the first inning — but did not hit a leadoff bomb. Last time it happened was a mere 95 years ago, when Johnny Frederick pulled off that trick against the Cardinals on June 26, 1931, to finish off an eight-run first inning at Ebbets Field.

THERE’S ALWAYS A CATCH — It still pays to check out those box scores, kids. You might see a cool nugget like this, from last Sunday’s Dodgers-Angels game:

Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing — 4-for-4
Angels catcher Sebastian Rivero — 5-for-5

Yankees catchers have one hit in their last 43 trips to the plate. And these two catchers got nine hits in the same game. What a sport.

So how many other games have there been since 1898 where one team’s starting catcher got at least four hits and the other team’s starting catcher got at least five? Katie Sharp found just two — in the last 129 seasons:

July 6, 1934, Reds vs. Cardinals — Ernie Lombardi (5 hits), Virgil Davis (4 hits)
July 12, 1931, Cubs vs. Cardinals — Gabby Hartnett (5 hits), Gus Mancuso (4 hits)

Yes, we just connected the dots between Gabby Hartnett and Sebastian Rivero, because you know you live for that stuff.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS — Just a week ago in this column, we were conscientiously mentioning that those San Francisco Giants had a special talent — for finding ways not to score runs. Oops!

What we meant to say, obviously, was that nobody puts crooked numbers on the old scoreboard like these Giants.

• They scored 10 runs or more just three times in their first 58 games — and then did it four times in the next week and a half.

• They hit zero grand slams in their first 46 games of this season — and then unloaded seven grand slams in the next three and a half weeks.

• They even hit slams in three ballparks on the same road trip (in Colorado, Milwaukee and Chicago). Only one other NL team (Lenny Dykstra’s 1987 Mets) had done that since World War 2 — and no Giants team had ever done it, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

• They even scored 30 runs in two days on that road trip (in Milwaukee and Chicago). Which was kinda strange, since they’d only scored 30 runs on one homestand all season.

I should probably mention that before all that busted out, the Giants had scored the fewest runs in the major leagues. But that’s not important anymore, because this is about to get stranger (but also truer), because …

EIGHT WAS NOT ENOUGH — Wednesday at Oracle Park, the Giants rolled into the eighth inning, trailing the Nationals, 9-1. Did that seem like a portent of Strange But True things to come? You wouldn’t have thought so if you were aware of these pesky little facts:

• The Giants hadn’t won a game all year when they even trailed by one run entering the eighth inning.

• They’d lost their last 56 games in a row when they trailed by two or more in the eighth.

• They’d also lost their last 637 in a row when they trailed by five or more entering the eighth.

• And here they were, down eight. They hadn’t won a game when trailing by eight or more entering the eighth inning since … let’s see now … how about Sept. 8, 1947. They were riding an attractive 336-game losing streak in games like that — until …

Eighth inning — Giants score five runs to pull to within 9-6.

Ninth inning — Giants score five runs in a second straight inning and win this thing, 11-10, on (what else?) an “ultimate” walk-off grand slam, by rookie basher Bryce Eldridge, that transformed a loss into the win of the year with one wave of the bat.

The Giants’ capped a late, eight-run comeback with Bryce Eldridge’s walk-off grand slam. (Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)

So what’s so Strange But True about that? Thanks for asking.

Only one team in history has ever been eight runs back in the eighth inning or later and then won that game with a walk-off grand slam, according to our friends from STATS Perform. And that team would be … Bryce Eldridge’s Giants.

Only one other player in Giants history had hit a walk-off slam when his team was trailing by three runs. That player, the Elias Sports Bureau reports, was the legendary Bobby Thomson, on June 16, 1952. That wasn’t his most famous walk-off, by the way. Look it up!

And only two other teams in the last 100 seasons had ever won a game even remotely like this — after entering the eighth inning trailing by at least five … and then scoring at least five runs in both the eighth and ninth innings. Here they come, courtesy of Sportradar:

• Rogers Hornsby’s 1927 New York Giants were the first of those teams. They trailed the Braves, 6-1, after seven innings on June 30. Then they, too, hung a pair of fives on the board in the eighth and ninth.

• Ben Oglivie’s 1985 Brewers were the other. They trailed the Tigers,7-1, after seven innings on April 25. Then they followed a very similar script to these Giants: Scored five in the eighth. Scored five more in the ninth. Had two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the ninth and then … got a homer from one Hall Famer (Paul Molitor) to stay alive … then won this game on (yep) a walk-off slam by another Hall of Famer (Ted Simmons).

I’ll remind you one more time that as recently as the last day of May, no team in this entire sport had scored fewer runs than these Giants. But what did that tell us about what was coming right over the horizon? That would be nothing — because that’s just how life works in …

Baseball!

Trivia answer

Chris Sale — 8
Gerrit Cole — 6
Dylan Cease — 5
Robbie Ray — 5
Aaron Nola — 5

(Great guesses — but not correct: Jacob deGrom 4, Zack Wheeler 3, Kevin Gausman 3.)



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