FanPost

The Longest Plate Appearance in Brewers History: 25th Anniversary

September 26, 1992 was an exciting time for the Brewers. At game time- it was a Saturday day game- the team's record stood at 87-67; they had won 12 of the previous 14 games and had crept to 3.5 games behind the 1st-place Toronto Blue Jays, with 8 to play. Unfortunately, they had no games left against Toronto, and Sunday the 27th would be their last home game of the year. 5 of their remaining 8 games were against the Bash Brothers-era Oakland A's, 93-61 at game time; who were on the verge of clinching their division. In fact, if they hadn't lost to the Brewers on Friday, they'd have already clinched.


On Saturday, the A's sent veteran Ron Darling to the mound to face Bill Wegman. Wegman, at age 29, was having one of his best seasons; 261.2 innings pitched (2nd in the AL), 3.20 ERA (9th), 4.7 WAR. Lack of run support held his record down to 13-14. Darling, meanwhile, was having a decent year; his 3.66 ERA gave him an ERA+ of 102, the first time his ERA+ had topped league-average since he helped the Mets win the World Series in 1986.

With the help of a double play, the A's went 1-2-3 in the top of the first. Leading off the bottom half of the inning: Pat Listach, an unheralded rookie shortstop who played his way into the starting lineup early in the season, then went on to win the Rookie of the Year award. With little power but a lot of speed (54 steals), the .290/.352/.349 hitter exemplified a team that only hit 82 home runs that year, but stole 256 bases. It's not too hard to guess what must have been Ron Darling's strategy: "OK, this guy can't hurt me much with the bat, but he can on the bases. So no freebies. Pound the plate and make him earn it."

And pound the plate he did; only to watch Listach keep spoiling his pitches. 11 two-strike pitches were sent foul, before Darling finally missed with Ball 4 on the 17th pitch of the plate appearance.

To his credit, Darling didn't lose his cool. He got out of the inning with Listach still occupying first base.

Their battle didn't end there. After a pair of unimportant at-bats in the 3rd and 5th innings- he singled in the third, but was caught stealing- Listach faced Darling for the fourth time in the 7th. This time the contest raged for 10 pitches, before ending in a strikeout. For the day, 35 of Darling's 127 pitches were thrown to Pat Listach; he only threw 7 innings, and probably would have gone 8 without Listach.

Which would have been a complete game; because, while Darling pitched quite well, only allowing 2 runs (neither of which involved Pat Listach), it wasn't good enough. Wegman (who only pitched 5.1) and a cadre of relievers combined to give the Brewers a 2-1 victory. And with Toronto losing 2-1 to the Yankees, the Brewers were now just 2.5 back, with 7 games to go.

--------------

Data isn't available for seasons prior to 1988, but Listach's 17-pitch walk is the longest known plate appearance in Brewer history. This article by Paul Swydan (which, alongside Baseball Reference, was my main source of information for this post) lists every major-league plate appearance of 14 pitches or more from 1988-2013; in that span of 26 seasons there were only 266 of them, a bit less than 10 per team. Only 14 plate appearances lasted as long as 17 pitches; only 6 of those lasted longer.

If I haven't missed anyone from the list, this is every Brewer plate appearance of 14+ pitches since 1988 (I researched the 2014-2017 seasons myself, though I admit to growing bored as I researched 2016, so I could've missed something there):

17- Pat Listach; 9/26/1992; walk vs. Ron Darling, A's
15- Dale Sveum; 4/16/1990; walk vs. Mike Rochford, Red Sox
15- Kevin Seitzer; 8/26/1992; fly ball vs. Scott Kamieniecki, Yankees
15- Jeromy Burnitz; 7/7/1999; strikeout vs. Steve Montgomery, Philles
14- Robin Yount; 9/1/1988; walk vs. Doyle Alexander, Tigers
14- Dale Sveum; 5/27/1991; home run vs. Jerry Don Gleaton, Tigers
14- Jeff Cirillo; 8/14/1995; sacrifice fly vs. Mike Christopher, Tigers
14- Jeromy Burnitz; 9/11/1998; fly ball vs. Don Wengert, Cubs
14- Marquis Grissom; 9/13/1998; single vs. Terry Mulholland, Cubs
14- Scott Podsednik; 9/25/2003; strikeout vs. Tim Redding, Astros
14- Ryan Braun; 8/1/2012; home run vs. Fernando Rodriguez, Astros
14- Manny Pina; 9/16/2017; strikeout vs. Adam Conley, Marlins