The Diamondbacks have won 12 games in a row. In that stretch, they’ve scored 78 runs and allowed just 25. If that seems like a ridiculous run differential to put up over the course of a dozen games, that’s because it is. In fact, the D-Backs have had such an extreme difference between runs scored and runs allowed of late that they’re close to breaking an MLB record: Arizona has not trailed in a game for 98 innings, the third-longest such streak in the history of MLB. And with five more innings without trailing on Wednesday, they’ll stand alone on the top.
The D-Backs are 5 innings from breaking a ridiculous MLB record
Wednesday’s Say Hey, Baseball looks at the D-Backs’ recent, near-historic success, the Red Sox stealing signs with technology, and the longest game of 2017.
Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Only the 1942 Yankees (101 innings) and the 2002 Athletics (102 innings) are ahead of the current D-Backs’ figure, so they’ve already made a mark on history. The fact they could pull this off against the Dodgers will only make it that much sweeter for Arizona: the D-Backs still have a long way to go to catch Los Angeles, but setting the record and winning Wednesday would cut the Dodgers’ NL West lead to 10.5 games, half of what it was on Aug. 25. Of course, the D-Backs don’t have to actually win to set the record: they just need to avoid falling behind for five innings.
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Lucky for the Diamondbacks, they’ll miss Clayton Kershaw in the final game of the series, and will instead see Taijuan Walker go up against Kenta Maeda. Maeda is good, and all if takes is a solo shot in the bottom half of the first inning for the D-Backs’ record chasing to end, but obviously you’d prefer any situation that includes not facing Kershaw.
It’s also worth pointing out that, regardless of whether Arizona ties or breaks or fails to do either thing with the record on Wednesday, they’ll still managed a notable achievement against the Dodgers this series. Arizona is 10-8 against Los Angeles in 2017: they’re the only team to have officially won their season series against the Dodgers, and only one of two teams Los Angeles has a sub-.500 winning percentage against this year. The Nationals, currently up 2-1 with another series to play, are the only other.
- Jose Ramirez now has five homers in his last three games, as he mashed another pair of dingers on Tuesday against the White Sox to help the Indians to their 13th consecutive victory.
- The Red Sox and Blue Jays played the longest game of the season by going 19 innings last night/this morning.
- The game went on so long that Mitch Moreland was a year older when it ended.
- Mookie Betts made a diving grab that, according to Statcast’s catch probabilities, was pretty unlikely to happen. And if you aren’t into Statcast, well, it’s a great catch regardless of the inclusion of that percentage chance.
- Speaking of the Red Sox, the Yankees accused them of stealing signs using Apple Watches, and the Sox admitted their guilt when confronted by MLB. Not without also pointing the finger at New York for using their YES cameras to steal signs themselves, though.
- As you can imagine, Red Sox and Yankees reps spent Tuesday afternoon discussing this.
- Here’s how the Red Sox used an Apple Watch to break the rules.
- Charlotte Wilder would like you to know that she’s a Boston fan and does not care even a little bit that the Red Sox cheated. Come at her, bros.
- I am also a Red Sox fan and also don’t care, but I don’t care because I’m 100 percent sure all 30 teams are cheating in some weird way when it comes to things like sign stealing. However, I do think the Red Sox should be punished for getting caught. See, I’m fair and balanced.
- The Indians had their own streak of not trailing, but it ended at 67 innings. They ended up coming back to win, however, so they still extended the longest winning streak in MLB this year to 13 games.
- Bryce Harper, my dude, what did you do to your hair?
- Luis Severino was looking like a future reliever to some not all that long ago, but then 2017 happened.
- Justin Verlander made his Astros debut, and it was good news for Houston and bad news for the Mariners.
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