This year’s NL wild-card game turned into the longest winner-take-all game in postseason history, and it saw plenty of strange moments, from a seventh-inning catcher’s interference call to an eighth-inning pinch-runner stealing a base and scoring and an eleventh-inning hug. And the ending continued that trend, with Rockies’ third-string catcher Tony Wolters, a career .170 hitter, getting the crucial run-scoring hit in the top of the 13th:
Tony. Wolters. 🔥#WildCard pic.twitter.com/o1eHguo8AP
— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2018
Wolters had just 32 hits all year and hadn’t recorded a hit since September 10, and he was one for 17 on changeups (the pitch in question here) this season. And this wasn’t exactly standard for him:
Tony Wolters was 0-15 in his final 9 regular season games and had only 1 career go-ahead hit in extra innings.
His RBI single just put the Rockies in front in the 13th inning.
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) October 3, 2018
And how Wolters got here is remarkable; he was a middle infielder in the Indians’ organization, they asked him to try catching in 2013, and he turned into a solid defensive catcher, claimed by Colorado on waivers in February 2016. He’s not the guy that you’d expect to come up with the crucial hit here, but he was the guy on the spot. And after the Rockies retired the Cubs in the bottom of the 13th, it was Wolters’ hit that ensured that it will be the Rockies moving on to play the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS.
[MLB on Twitter]
Andrew and after the Brewers retired the Cubs in the bottom of the 13th don’t you mean the Rockies?
Quite right, was thinking ahead to talking about the Brewers’ series. My mistake. Thanks for the note; I’ve corrected.