This is kind of cool: after a full 18 innings of baseball, the San Diego Padres had burned completely through their bullpen and had even gone to the well for Friday’s starter, making him throw two innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
With nobody left, they were forced to call on their shortstop, who had luckily been a former high school pitcher:
Josh Wilson appeared calm and collected when he approached the mound for the Padres in the 18th inning Sunday at PETCO Park….
With no other options remaining, manager Bud Black signaled for the shortstop and former high school pitcher to head to the mound.
“We always look for emergency-type pitchers, and he was the guy,” Black said. “He was the logical choice.”
Amazingly, Wilson’s only been a Padre since mid-May — and he was called to pitch against his former team. Even more amazingly for an infielder, he actually pitched once for the Diamondbacks in early May. What are the odds?
Sorry to say that despite some fine pitching, he hung too juicy a strike out over the plate, and lost the game by giving up a three-run homer.
(Vintage Padres logo from this site, which I blogged about recently.)
Grant Hamilton
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