Yanks, Tigers Split Doubleheader
After 26 innings, 770 pitches and nearly nine hours on the field, the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees finished up all even.
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The final out came at 1:17 a.m., long after games at Los Angeles and San Francisco had ended. Because the Tigers were making their final trip to Yankee Stadium, the AL curfew of 1 a.m. was waived well before the first game ended.
Joe Randa's RBI single with two outs in the 17th ended the longest game for both teams since 1988. It took 5 hours, 50 minutes and was the lengthiest game in the majors this season, one more minute than Toronto and Baltimore took on June 19.
Irabu (9-3) beat the Tigers for the third time this season. He left after Bobby Higginson's two-run homer into the upper deck in right in the eighth inning, and Mariano Rivera got his 25th save.
Derek Jeter hit an RBI single in the third off Bryce Florie (5-4) and the Yankees never trailed in the second game. Jeter went 6-for-12 for the day and rookie Homer Bush had a career-high three hits in the second game.
Tigers leadoff man Brian Hunter, however, went 0-for-13 overall. He set a major leaue record for most at-bats without a hit in a doubleheader, breaking the dismal mark of 12 last done by Washington's Bob Saverine in 1966.
Only a few thousand fans were in the stands when the doubleheader began at 4:06 p.m. in muggy, 85-degree weather. Many fans from the announced crowd of 36,285 were already gone by the time the second game started at 10:32 p.m.
"I would've preferred this was the only one we had, that our guys could enjoy it," Tigers manager Buddy Bell said after the opener.
"But we're so programmed to forget the last one and move on, I guess that's what we'll do," he said.
Not since Sept. 11, 1988, when the Yankees beat Detroit 5-4 in 18 innings, had either club played so long. This game matched the longest in innings this year in the majors -- Toronto and Florida needed 17 innings on June 8 and San Francisco and St. Louis took 17 on May 24.
The Yankees had plenty of chances, leaving 22 runners on base. They left the bases loaded in the eighth, 10th, 12th and 15th, and were hitless in their last 16 at-bats with runners in scoring position.
"How many guys did we leave on base, 326?" Yankees manager Joe Torre said.
Both teams ran through their entire bullpens. Detroit employed 20 players overall and the Yankees used 18.
"I told the guys that if the game lasted until midnight, they were all eligible again," Torre said. "A couple of them bit on it."
Toward the end of that marathon, even the stadium staff seemed fatigued. When A.J. Sager relieved for Detroit in the 16th, the scoreboard flashed "Now Pitching -- Armando Benitez" -- a mistaken reference to the Baltimore pitcher.
Yankees relievers had retired 15 straight batters before Luis Gonzalez singled with one out in the 17th. Paul Bako singled with two outs and Randa singled to center.
Sager (3-1), the eighth Tigers pitcher, was the winner a day after being called back up from the minors.
"Sag was just going to go forever, no matter how long it lasted," Bell said.
Darren Holmes (0-3), the seventh Yankees pitcher, took the loss.
The Tigers scored twice in the seventh, tying it on Joe Randa's single. Yankees starter David Wells pitched 6 2-3 innings in his first game in eight days - his scheduled start last Friday was pushed back because of an injured right big toe.
Tigers starter Seth Greisinger, tagged by the Yankees in an 11-0 loss last Wednesday at Detroit, limited them to four hits in six innings.
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