The Greatest Extra-Inning Games in Baseball History

Most sports have a clock. Baseball has outs. That difference becomes most visible in extra innings, when the game has already used its nine-inning structure and both teams are improvising — pulling starters, burning relievers, sending up pinch hitters who haven't swung since the fourth inning. The games on this list are the ones that turned that tension into something historic.

1 2018 World Series · Game 3 — Dodgers vs. Red Sox · 18 Innings

October 26, 2018. Game 3 of the World Series between the Dodgers and the Red Sox started at 8 PM Eastern and ended past 3 AM. By the end, both starting pitchers had long since left; both bullpens had thrown exhausted innings; the score had been tied six separate times; and Max Muncy — a player the Dodgers had claimed off waivers the year before — hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 18th to give Los Angeles an 3–2 win.

The numbers were staggering. Eighteen innings of World Series baseball. Seven hours, twenty minutes — the longest game in World Series history by length. Combined, 27 pitchers threw across both teams. The score was tied 2–2 after nine innings, and the teams combined for nothing for the next eight full innings until Muncy ended it. The scorecard from that game is unlike any other in the catalog — not just because of the number of innings, but because of what the scorebook looks like when you fill in the columns through the 10th, 11th, 12th, all the way to 18.

The Red Sox won the 2018 World Series in five games. Game 3 was their only loss — and it took 18 innings to deliver it.

2 2005 NLDS · Game 4 — Astros vs. Braves · 18 Innings

October 9, 2005. This NLDS game between Houston and Atlanta is the longest postseason game in MLB history by innings: 18 innings, 5 hours and 50 minutes. The Astros trailed 6–1 entering the eighth inning and came all the way back. Lance Berkman hit a grand slam in the eighth. Chris Burke ended it with a solo home run in the bottom of the 18th. Roger Clemens came in to pitch three scoreless innings of relief starting in the 15th, on his birthday. The Astros went on to win the series and make their only World Series appearance.

3 1986 NLCS · Game 6 — Mets vs. Astros · 16 Innings

One of the most dramatic games ever played. The Mets trailed 3–0 in the ninth inning of Game 6, needing to win or go home. They tied it. The Astros took the lead in the 14th. The Mets came back again. Houston had the lead again in the 16th — and then Jesse Orosco struck out Kevin Bass with the tying run on base to send the Mets to the World Series. Sixteen innings of playoff baseball, the whole series decided on a pitch that Bass couldn't touch.

4 2014 World Series · Game 7 — Giants vs. Royals

Not technically extra innings, but close enough: Game 7 of the 2014 World Series was tied 2–2 when Madison Bumgarner entered from the bullpen in the fifth inning. He'd already thrown 117 pitches in Game 5 two days earlier. He went on to throw five scoreless innings — arguably the greatest relief performance in World Series history — until the Royals had the tying run at third with two outs in the ninth. Bumgarner struck out Salvador Perez to end it. The whole scorebook from that night holds the same kind of compressed tension as an extra-inning game: you can feel how close it was, at-bat by at-bat.

5 1995 ALDS · Game 5 — Mariners vs. Yankees · 11 Innings

After 10 innings tied 5–5, the Mariners scored twice in the 11th on Edgar Martinez's double down the left-field line. Joey Cora scored. Ken Griffey Jr. — running all the way from first — scored standing up. The Double. The play that kept baseball in Seattle (the state legislature funded a new stadium that winter) and remains the signature moment of Mariners history. Eleven innings to get there, and worth every one of them.

6 Rays — Game 162 · The Miracle at the Trop (2011)

September 28, 2011. The Rays were down 7–0 in the eighth inning, about to be eliminated, while the Red Sox were closing out a 9–0 lead in Baltimore. The Rays came all the way back, forced extra innings, and Evan Longoria hit a walk-off homer in the 12th. Within minutes, the Red Sox lost their lead in Baltimore and blew the Wild Card. Two teams collapsed simultaneously in two separate ballparks, and the Rays survived. Twelve innings of one of the wildest nights in baseball history.

7 2003 NLCS · Game 5 — Cubs vs. Marlins · 11 Innings

Before the Bartman game, there was Game 5: an 11-inning Cubs loss that put Florida ahead in the series, setting up the collapse. But the game itself was a legitimate extra-inning classic — the Cubs and Marlins going blow for blow until Mike Mordecai's three-run double in the 11th decided it. Context makes it tragic for Chicago fans; the baseball was as good as any extra-inning game gets.

The scorecard that captures it all

What makes an extra-inning game unique on a scorecard is the structure — the columns keep extending past nine, each new inning another rectangle of outs and at-bats, the tension made physical by how far the sheet keeps going. A Game 3 scorecard from 2018 with 18 innings filled in is a document of endurance. A Game 5 scorecard from 1995 with 11 innings is a record of the whole comeback, preserved pitch by pitch.

Field & Ink carries the 2018 World Series Game 3 (the longest World Series game ever played), the 1995 ALDS Game 5 (The Double), and the 2014 World Series Game 7 — three of the most famous extra-inning or near-extra-inning games in baseball history. Any other game from the last 100 years is available as a custom scorecard.

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