David Freese's game-tying triple and subsequent walk-off home run propelled the St. Louis Cardinals to victory in Game 6 of the 2011 World Series. (Herkie / Wikimedia Commons)
Heading into the ninth inning of Saturday's game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Baltimore Orioles, Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto had yet to give up a single hit. With a 3-0 lead, he easily retired the first two batters, putting him just one out away from the first no-hitter of the 2025 MLB season.
A few minutes later, the Orioles won the game, 4-3.
How is that even possible? Yamamoto has a top-5 ERA in the National League, and Orioles second baseman Jackson Holliday, the final out Yamamoto needed to secure the no-hitter, made headlines last year for having one of the worst starts to a career in MLB history.
ESPN gave the Dodgers a 99.6% chance of winning entering Holliday's at-bat, which, in the eyes of most other sports fans, means "the game has ended." And yet, here we are. Holliday hit a home run, five more Orioles got on base, and now the biggest story in baseball this week is a come-from-behind win instead of a no-hitter.
This game is a fascinating example of why I love baseball so much, and why I choose to keep watching it despite the slog of a three-hour scoreless game: More so than any other sport, a baseball game truly is not over until it's over.
As a St. Louis native -- therefore a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan -- I've known this fact since before I fully understood the rules of baseball.
On Oct. 27, 2011, Cardinals third baseman David Freese found himself in a precarious situation: bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes and trailing 7-5. St. Louis was hosting the Texas Rangers for Game 6 of the 2011 World Series, needing a win to keep its season alive after the Rangers took a 3-2 series lead.
Texas was just one good pitch away from its first championship in franchise history. Instead, Freese tied the game with a two-run triple, inches away from the reach of Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz.
No matter, though. The Rangers would get their two-run lead back in the 10th inning, thanks to a home run from outfielder Josh Hamilton. Surely, the same thing couldn't happen again!
The same thing happened again.
Again, the Cardinals picked up a game-tying hit with two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the inning, this time courtesy of outfielder Lance Berkman.
All that was left was for Freese to hit a legendary walk-off home run in the 11th inning, forcing a Game 7 -- which the Cardinals would win with ease -- and cementing his spot in baseball history.
I have watched the ending of that game hundreds of times. I will never stop thinking about it, I will never stop asking my parents what it was like to be there and I will never forgive myself for being too young to fully care about what was going on.
That game, plain and simple, was magical. And it's a type of magic I really don't think you can replicate in any other sport.
To be clear, I'm not arguing that other sports don't have last-minute comebacks -- the term "buzzer beater" exists for a reason -- but without a set time limit, baseball is inherently different.
If a football team is up 10 points with 30 seconds left, it can take the victory formation and run out the clock. If a basketball team is up 10 points with 30 seconds left, it can stop shooting and run out the clock. If a baseball team is up 5 runs with two outs in the ninth, there's nothing it can do to shortcut the process; it just has to play the game as usual and earn every last out.
There's no "running out the clock" in baseball. Every inning, every out and every pitch matters.
As an avid baseball fan, my friends often ask me why I watch baseball, of all sports, when it just isn't that exciting. There's a simple answer: it is that exciting.
The tension before each pitch. The uncertainty of whether that fly ball will land in the stands or in the outfielder's glove. And, above all else, the knowledge that no lead is truly safe until the game has come to an end.
Baseball may not deliver a constant, intense flow of action; I'll give you that. But the next time you're leaving a football game at halftime with your team leading 31-13, I'll still be seated at the baseball stadium, knowing that the three-run ninth-inning lead could be gone in an instant.