Playing around with Baseball-Reference.com's Play Index Post-Season Pitching Event Finder, looking at the final out recorded in deciding games for a post-season series,  I noticed that there have only been 4 times, to date, in baseball history where the deciding game ended on a double play.  See this list:

  Car#  G# Date          Series G Pitcher           Tm   Opp Batter            Score       Inn RoB Out Cnt Pit  R Play Desc. 
+-----+---+-------------+------+-+-----------------+---+----+-----------------+-----------+---+---+---+---+---+--+-------------------------+ 
      1   1 1912-10-16    WS     8 Christy Mathewson NYG @BOS Larry Gardner     tied   2-2  b10 123   1   -      1 *ENDED GAME*:Flyball: RF/Sacrifice Fly; Yerkes Scores/unER 
      2   1 1921-10-13    WS     8 Art Nehf          NYG @NYY Frank Baker       ahead  1-0  b 9 1--   1   -      0 *ENDED GAME*:Double Play: Groundout: 2B-1B; Ward out at 3B/1B-3B 
      3   1 1947-10-06    WS     7 Joe Page          NYY  BRO Bruce Edwards     ahead  5-2  t 9 1--   1   -      0 *ENDED GAME*:Ground Ball Double Play: SS-2B-1B 
      4   1 1977-10-09    ALCS   5 Sparky Lyle       NYY @KCR Freddie Patek     ahead  5-3  b 9 1--   1 0-2   3  0 *ENDED GAME*:Ground Ball Double Play: 3B-2B-1B 
      5   1 2002-10-07    NLDS   5 Robb Nen          SFG @ATL Chipper Jones     ahead  3-1  b 9 1-3   1 0-1   2  0 *ENDED GAME*:Ground Ball Double Play: 1B-SS

You might be thinking here "Hey, you said there were four - but, there's five games on this list?!?"  Yes, that's correct.  I looked for "Outs by Batter Allowed in Postseason, Deciding Game, as last play of game, and 1 Outs" to try and find my DP list - and it also grabbed that World Series game from 1912 that ended on a SF in the 10th inning.  If I would have used another filter of "Ahead" when the outs were made, it would have only given me games where they ended in a twin-killing.  No biggie, in the end, as I still got the four games that I was looking for here.

Three of the four times, it involved the Yankees - no shocker there, as the Yankees have been in a ton of post-season series.  Also, three of the four times, the batter hit into the DP to end the game, and the series, when the game was being played in his home park.

It's a rare thing to see - where the deciding game of a post-season series ends on a double-play.  Look at it this way:  If you're under the age of 60, it's only happened TWICE in your lifetime.  Wow.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Event Finders. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.