EXL: Eagles won in a dramatic game in Southern Bohemia. Was the record broken?
Another round of Extraliga started on Wednesday. The only game played offer dramatic developments and it was eventually decided in the fourth extra inning.
The game was dominated by pitchers for a long time. Visiting Natsuki Tamba threw seven scoreless innings. William Nahmens only allowed one run in five innings after a solo homerun from Uemura.
The score remained unchanged until the eighth inning. First, Eagles increased their lead to 2-0 after a double from Šimon Blažek, for Matěj Vlach to bat in 2 runs in the bottom half inning. This tied the game at 2-2 and the score remained like this till the end of the ninth inning. The game went to overtime.
An interesting situation occurred in the extra innings. While we didn’t see any runs in the ninth inning, Eagles managed to score a run in the following two innings, but hosts always tied the game. Besides that, there were some referee decisions that fanned the emotion of the hosts. Referee ejected Alec Lemmon and reliever Austin Hassani.
Hosts were left with only 16 years old Lukáš Chromý to finish the game. He had hard times with pitch location and after a series of walks and wild pitches visitors increased their lead to 9-4. Hosts substituted Matěj Vlach from the center field and sent him on the mound. Eagles scored one more run against him, but Vlach managed to close the half inning. The score remained unchanged, however, and visitors won 10-5 in the end.
The game itself lasted over 4 hours and was close to breaking the record for the longest Extraliga game, which is still held by 2018 game between Arrows and Kotlářka (4 hours, 21 minutes). Eight years ago, there was also a game between Hroši and Kotlářka, which took 4 hours and 20 minutes, and pitchers threw 441 pitches. On Wednesday, pitchers needed 445 pitches. As far as the official length of the game goes, we will have to wait for the official scorecard.
Prague entered the series better and the series now moves to their home field where they will play on Friday and Saturday.
