Barons Fall In Longest Game In Franchise History

BayBears outlast Barons 5-3 in 17-inning marathon at Regions Field.

By Nick Dobreff

May 3, 2014

The Birmingham Barons and Mobile BayBears played in the longest game in Barons history Friday with the Barons falling by a score of 5-3 in 17-innings in front of 7,592 fans at Regions Field.

The game was a classic pitchers dual in the early goings as Myles Jaye and Andrew Chaffin traded zeroes through the first five innings. Mobile's Garrett Webber accounted for the game's first run with a sixth inning solo home run. It would be the only run charged to Jaye as he scattered three hits and struck out a season-high seven over 7.0 IP.

The Barons were held scoreless through the first six innings by Chaffin, running their scoreless inning streak to 16. However, a leadoff walk to Rangel Ravelo in the 7^th came back to haunt Chaffin as Ravelo moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Chris Curley and scored on a base hit by Josh Richmond to tie the game at 1-1. The RBI was Richmond's team-leading 20^th of the season.

The game would remain tied into extra-innings as both bullpens flexed their respective muscles on a chilly night in downtown Birmingham. Mobile would retake the lead in the 14^th inning when Raywilly Gomez lined a two-run double into the right field corner against reliever Kevin Vance giving Mobile a 3-1 lead.

The game looked to be all but over, but the Barons refused to go away quietly putting the first two runners on base in the bottom half of the inning against Matt Stites and tying the game at 3-3 on an RBI groundout by Chris Curley and a base hit by Josh Richmond.

The game would move into the 17^th inning where Sean Jamieson's ground-rule double against Evan Crawford (0-1, 2.84) scored Steve Rodriguez to put the BayBears ahead for good at 4-3. Mike Freeman added an RBI single later in the inning to make it a 5-3 lead they would not relinquish. The win went to Willy Paredes (2-0, 3.86) who allowed two hits over 2.0 scoreless IP.

The final time of game (5:25) was the longest in the Barons franchise history spanning back to 1885 while the game fell an inning shy of matching the longest game in terms of innings in the storied history of the team.

With the loss, the Barons fell to 11-16 while Mobile improved to 18-10. The Barons will look to rebound tomorrow night as they send LHP Scott Snodgress (1-2, 6.08) to the hill against RHP Mike Lee (3-2, 3.90). First pitch is scheduled for a 6:30 PM CDT.