When the Dust Settles...Right Back Where You Started

On September 8, Arizona and Pittsburgh combined for 5 ninth inning runs, and the game went into extras. For both teams to score a bunch of late runs and end up tied is pretty cool in my book, so it made me wonder what was the wildest "when the dust settled, everything was exactly tied" game.

As it turns out, there was--woo hoo!--an anomalous game! Mmmm...anomalous. One game stood out head and shoulders from the rest, defying probablilties and standard deviations.

Since 1969, six pairs of teams managed to combine to put up nine ninth-inning runs on the board, only to continue playing. But one game in 1994 blew them all out of the water with an astounding twelve!

Going into the ninth, Toronto led California 8-6 after putting up a five-spot in the eighth. But then, in the top of the ninth, to really put it away, they scored five more to take a 13-6 lead...only to allow the Angels to score exactly seven in the bottom of the ninth to tie it! They then lost it in the tenth. Oops!

This is also the game with the most eighth and ninth inning runs combined to go to extra innings...four more than the next highest game! This is definitely a future Esoteric Boxscore of the Day.

So this is how it went:

Start of eighth: 6-3
Start of ninth: 8-6
Final score: 14-13

Pretty amazing, eh?