Wildest Game Of The Year? AZL Brewers Score 15 In First

Skylar Szynski made his pro baseball debut on Wednesday night. The A’s fourth-round pick and his team would probably prefer to just forget it ever happened.

Szynski was the opening act in what will rank as one of the craziest innings and wildest games we’ll ever see in minor league baseball. On a 106-degree night that reminded everyone why the Arizona League is called the “Fire League,” the AZL Brewers scored 15 runs in the top of the first. They batted around twice before the AZL Athletics ever got to bat.

Szynski gave up a walk to start his pro career, followed by a single. After a wild pitch advanced both runners, he gave up a double that scored two. Jay Feliciano followed with a two-run home run, meaning Szynski had given up four runs before he recorded his first pro out. After striking out Payton Henry, Szynski was pulled because the A’s didn’t want him throwing any more high-stress pitches in one inning.

And then this is when the game really got out of control. Dominican righthander Wandisson Charles, a tall (6-foot-6) righthander with shaky control, entered to try to get the A’s out of the inning. Charles walked all five batters he faced, mixing in two wild pitches and a passed ball.

At this point, the score was 6-0, so the game was out of hand, but it still was within the normal realm of a bad inning. Charles was pulled at this point to try to throw a tourniquet on the wound.

Reliever Frederick de la Cruz had no more success with the strike zone than Charles. On the first batter de la Cruz faced, ball four was a wild pitch—wild enough that Julio Mendez scored from second base. De la Cruz proceeded to walk the next two batters as well to reload the bases. At this point, the AZL Athletics had walked eight straight batters.

Henry was the only batter in the Brewers lineup at this point who had not reached and scored. He fixed that by doubling in two runs in his second at-bat of the inning. After Nick Cain grounded out, Nic Pierre added another two-RBIs double and Johel Antencio reached on an error that scored Pierre.  Julio Mendez drove in another run with a double to complete the Brewers’ second time through the batting order in the first inning. Mercifully, leadoff hitter Jose Gomez’s third plate appearance of the inning ended with a strikeout.

One inning. 15 runs. Six hits. Nine walks. Four wild pitches. Two errors and one passed ball.

The Brewers scored one more run in the second. The game was called after five innings as a 16-0 AZL Brewers win.