Fans who gutted out Monday night’s game between the National League West first place Los Angeles Dodgers and the visiting American League Central first place Minnesota Twins were not only treated to the (thus far) most exciting game of the 2023 season, but also to the (thus far) longest game of the 2023 season.

In a game that began with a first-inning two-run home run by Dodgers catcher Will Smith (his ninth) followed immediately with a solo shot by Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy (his MLB-tying 13th), the Dodgers were off to an early 3-0 lead before the proverbial seats were even warm.

The game ended three hours and 48 minutes later on, of all things, a rare two-out bases-loaded six-pitch walk-off walk of Dodgers pinch-hitter Trayce Thompson in the bottom of the 12th inning to give Dodgers manager Dave Roberts‘ team the thrilling 9-8 win in a game in which he use his entire bullpen, all six of them.

The last man standing was 27-year-old Dodgers right-hander Phil Bickford who, for the first time in his (thus far) four-year MLB career, had to go 3.0 innings … had to.

“It made me very happy,” Bickford told reporters postgame about being the center of the celebration in front of the Dodgers dugout after getting Twins left fielder Alex Kirilloff to fly out to Dodgers center fielder Jason Heyward to end the game. “This team is super cool. We’ve all got each other’s back, and it just made it that much more neat to be able to be given an opportunity like that and come out on the winning side. It was super cool.”

“I can’t say enough about Phil. That’s as good of an outing from him that you’ll ever see,” Roberts said of Bickford gutsy performance. “Everyone in that room knows that he really cares. He cares more about being a good teammate than being a good baseball player, truth be told, and he left it all out there and we needed every bit of it.”

As for Thompson, his dramatic off-the-bench walk-off walk gave the Dodgers their sixth consecutive win and 14th in their last 16 games.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that Muncy hit a second home run on Monday night to become MLB’s home run leader with 14. The Midland, TX native and fifth round draft pick in 2012 by the Oakland Athletics out of Baylor University drove in three of the Dodgers nine runs while scoring two of them.

Play Ball!

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