Sometimes MLB Counts the Numbers Even When They Don’t Count

Baseball is a funny sport with a lot of funny rules. Among the oddest, though, might be the guidelines around when a game is considered official, when the statistics count, and how those two things don’t always align with the amount of wins and losses in the sport. 

Last Thursday’s game between the New York Mets and Miami Marlins was suspended due to rain shortly after the Marlins scored two runs to take a 2-1 lead in the top of the ninth inning. The original plan was to resume the game on Monday, a day before the playoffs started. But since the Marlins had clinched a playoff berth — and because the outcome of that game wouldn’t affect their postseason seeding — MLB determined that the game would not be resumed. 

You might think that would mean the Marlins won, as they were leading at the time of suspension. But MLB has a very specific rule — 7.02(b)(4) — for this very situation. Though we’re not sure what MLB’s official decision will be yet, the Mets are expected to be awarded the 1-0 victory because the score would revert back to the previous full inning of play.

And here’s the heart of baseball’s odd ways. All individual stats the Marlins players accumulated in the half-inning of play that could magically disappear still count in their season and career totals. Jazz Chisholm Jr. started the rally with an RBI double, and then scored on Yuli Gurriel’s single. Jon Berti followed with a single that extended his hitting streak to nine games. Some of those hits drove in runs that will never actually show up in the team totals, but the players get to keep them either way.

Again, that outcome hasn’t been officially announced by MLB yet. But if it does happen, it means that Mets reliever Grant Hartwig would likely get the victory (after teammate Anthony Kay was on the hook for the loss) with Marlins pitcher Andrew Nardi having it ripped away. It’s all very bizarre, counterintuitive and arbitrary . . . but, hey, that’s baseball.