51 Pitches

A very good Oakland A's ballclub beat a very good Cardinals ballclub tonight in Oakland by the score of 6 - 1 in 2:42. If you take away the bottom of the 2nd inning when the A's scored 5 of their runs, this was one of the better paced games of the 2013 season. The bottom of the second inning took 35 minutes to play which means that this game was played in about a 2 hour pace. A game with a 2 hour pace usually means (99% of the time anyway) that the two teams involved are very good ball clubs. Why did the bottom of the second take so long to play you ask? Because the Redbirds starting pitcher threw 51 pitches in that inning alone. In the last thirty years, that is the most pitches a Cards pitcher has thrown in one inning. This is my 26th year of televising Cardinals baseball. It is a fact - that is the most pitches I have ever witnessed for one inning in a Cardinals baseball game. That means in over 3500 baseball games I witnessed something I have never seen before. 51 pitches - wow!