There comes a point in every extremely long extra-inning game where it just stops being fun; a point where the radio announcer’s constant attempt at being funny or cute becomes annoying and intolerable and leaves their listeners muttering to themselves wishing that Vin Scully still did television and radio. Add to this an unseasonal tropical storm with on-again, off-again light rain and it gets to the point where everyone just wants the game to end.

In a nutshell, this pretty much sums up Tuesday night’s 16-inning, five-hour and 23-minute affair between the Dodgers and the Colorado Rockies in front of what was initially announced as a crowd of 45,311 (which wasn’t even close) and ended with a Tropicana Field-like crowd that numbered in the hundreds. Unfortunately for the Dodgers, the game ended when one of the best hitters in the MLB (Nolan Arenado) hit a 16th-inning solo home run off of one of the worst pitchers in the MLB (Mat Latos who, in the opinion of many, shouldn’t even be on the team) to give the Rockies the 5-4 win.

Beleaguered former starter Mat Latos did the only thing he could after serving up the game-winning home run on Tuesday night – he spit out his gum. (Video Capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

To add insult to injury, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly still had two pitchers left in his overcrowded, expanded-rostered bullpen that would have been a much better choice than Latos, who hasn’t won even once since being acquired at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. (Note: Latos was 0-2 with a 6.56 ERA in his five starts as a Dodger, which is now 0-3 with a 6.66 ERA since being banished to the bullpen).

So why, then, would Mattingly bring in Mat Latos to face the heart of the Rockies batting order when he still had Joe Wieland and even more so Kenley Jansen still in his bullpen? As you might expect, Mattingly’s answer to this question raised a few eyebrows from reporters during his postgame interview.

“I was wanting to be careful with [Jansen]. I would have used him today, I would have used him in a save situation,” Mattingly said. “And once we didn’t get the lead and ended up being tied, I had him up throwing. I knew I wouldn’t use him at that point.”

Does this make any sense to anybody?

Mattingly confused the gathered media when he tried to explain why he brought in ex-starter Mat Latos over Kenley Jansen in the 16th inning of Tuesday night’s rain-soaked game. Nobody bought it.
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

It might have made sense – maybe – if Jansen had needed rest from being used in consecutive games. But the 6′-5″, 265-pound Dodger closer rested on Monday night after having been used two nights in a row in Arizona. In fact, Mattingly confirmed that it wasn’t a rest issue with Jansen.

“No rest [issue]. I would have used him tonight if it was a save,” said Mattingly.

But alas, Mattingly did not use Jansen in a situation where most baseball analysts (and fans) believed that he should have and the (almost predictable) result was a 5-4 Dodgers loss to the last place Rockies.

There is one silver lining to this otherwise dismal but record-setting (for most pitchers used) game – the second place San Francisco Giants also lost in their own extra-inning affair to the Cincinnati Reds at AT&T Park on Tuesday night, thereby keeping the Dodgers 7.5 games ahead of them in the standings with only 18 games remaining and reducing the Dodgers’ magic number to 11.

So there’s that.