King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Braves linger for 18 thrilling innings before Astros hand them this year's inevitable playoff loss.

Oct 10, 2005 | If you're a Houston Astros fan, Sunday's 18-inning series clincher over the Atlanta Braves was the greatest game in baseball history. If you're a Braves fan, it was probably kind of routine, nothing more than an entertaining postponement of the inevitable.

Most of the rest of us can list a few better games, including the classic 16-inning Game 6 of the 1986 National League Championship Series, also in Houston and also a clincher, but that one not such a happy memory for the locals. The 1980 NLCS, which the Astros lost three games to two to the Philadelphia Phillies, blends in my memory into one long, humdinger of a game.

But no complaints. Sunday's 7-6 Astros win was a doozy, an all-time great, the Astros coming from 6-1 down on a grand slam by Lance Berkman in the eighth inning and a game-tying solo shot by Brad Ausmus in the ninth. The Braves also got a grand slam, from Adam LaRoche, making this the first postseason game ever with a grand slam by each team.

Along the way we saw 13 and two-thirds innings of one-run, eight-hit, 14-strikeout -- and eight(!)-walk -- relief from the Astros bullpen, including Roger Clemens throwing the last three and getting the win in his first relief appearance since 1984, the second of his career. Clemens had been slapped around as a starter in Game 2 Thursday.

In the other playoff game Sunday, also a good one but pale by comparison, the New York Yankees rallied to beat the Los Angeles Angels 3-2 in Game 4 at Yankee Stadium, sending the teams across the country for the deciding game Monday.

The Braves bullpen was pretty good too in the 18-inning game, once Kyle Farnsworth got finished coughing up the five-run lead he'd been handed by giving up the homers to Berkman and Ausmus in the eighth and ninth.

Chris Reitsma, John Thomson, Jim Brower and Joey Devine combined for eight and a third innings of one-hit shutout extra-inning relief before Devine gave up the game-winner, a short-porch homer by Chris Burke. If Devine, a first-year pro, is remembered as the goat of this game, Farnsworth ought to send him a Christmas card every year for life.

Clemens actually entered the game as a pinch-hitter, one of those oddities you get in marathon games, things like the box-score entry for Houston's Eric Bruntlett -- "Bruntlett, ss-cf-ss-cf" -- or the fact that Bruntlett entered the game in the eighth inning and got five at-bats.

Next Page: The snappiest 18-inning game you'll ever see. Plus: Why can't the Braves win?

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