It was unexpected and it was incredible.

It was Carl Crawford’s mammoth two-run home run off of the second deck façade in right field of Marlins Park in the top of the 11th inning off former Dodger Carlos Marmol to give the Dodgers a 9-7 win over the Miami Marlins in yet another game that the Dodgers bullpen let get away.

In his 86th plate appearance of 2014, Carl Crawford finally hit his first home run of the season – and it was huge. (Video capture courtesy of MLB.com)

Crawford had entered the game in the top of the 10th inning as part of a double switch with a paltry .185 batting average and exactly zero home runs and only six RBIs on the season. It was dramatic, it was exciting and it was the game-winner – and nobody was happier than Carl Crawford.

“Like busting that big pimple or something,” said Crawford after the game. “You know things are getting bad and you need to do something before they get worse. You hope you just get a base hit or something.”

Mired in a horrible 4 for 45 slump (.088), Crawford is still hitting below the Mendoza line at .195 even after his dramatic home run, but he seems to be hitting the ball well of late but ‘right at ’em,’ as they say.

But lost in all of the excitement of Crawford’s home run (and Dee Gordon’s career-best five-hit night) was a play, one pitch actually, that had it not happened, might have ended the game in a Dodgers loss long before Crawford even entered the game. Now granted, it may be a reach to connect the dots here, but anything is possible in the greatest game on earth.

Here’s how it played out:

With the Dodgers nursing a 7-6 lead in the bottom of the 9th inning after yet another Brian Wilson meltdown, former Indians closer Chris Perez was brought in to save the game for Paul Maholm – this because Dodgers regular closer Kenley Jansen had been used in two consecutive games and leads all of baseball with his 18 appearances. But much like Wilson, the hard-throwing Perez immediately ran into trouble giving up a leadoff double to Marlins third baseman Casey McGehee and a one-out walk to first baseman Garrett Jones. Marlins Second baseman Jeff Baker followed with a sharp single to right on which Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig made a great throw to his cutoff man (no, really) that prevented McGehee from scoring.

With the bases now loaded and the potential winning run on second base, Marlins manager Mike Redmond sent catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia (and his .308 batting average) to the plate to pinch hit for Jeff Mathis (and his .313 batting average). During Salty’s at bat, Perez immediately fell behind 2-0 before a swing and a miss to bring the count to 2-1.

With the tying run 90 feet away, Perez’s next pitch was outside for ball three – WAY outside. In fact, it was so far outside that Dodgers recently called up veteran catch Miguel Olivo had to make a stab to catch it, which he did. It was a catch that, in all honesty, Drew Butera, Tim Federowicz or even A.J. Ellis probably does not make and undoubtedly would have gone for a wild pitch that would have allowed McGehee to waltz in from third base and perhaps even allowing Jones to score from second; but Olivo made the catch.

It’s hard to say whether or not Miguel Olivo’s catch of Chris Perez’s near wild pitch was a game saver, but it ‘s easy to say that because of it, the wild pitch never happen. (Video capture courtesy of MLB.TV)

Unfortunately, Perez walked Saltalamacchia after running the count full, thus allowing McGehee to score the tying run and giving Perez his first blown save of the young season. Fortunately, Perez was able to get Marlins pinch-hitter Derek Dietrich to fly out to Matt Kemp after (gulp) going 3-1 to Dietrich, thus stranding Jones at third base and sending the game into extras and the eventual Crawford home run.

As noted, it may be a reach to suggest that Garrett Jones might have scored the winning run from second base had Olivo not been able to snag Perez’s near wild pitch, but with the Dodgers leading all of baseball in errors with 32 (in 31 games played), it might not be that far of a reach after all.