The count had run full, the game was out of hand, and the pitch from Orioles reliever Oliver Drake was an 82.1-mph splitter that was up and in. The batter froze and let it pass, home-plate umpire Paul Emmel called strike three, and the Fenway Park crowd, still buzzing from the David Ortiz home run that had just put the Red Sox up,10-2, didn't even realize it had just witnessed something historically significant last Sept. 12:
That was the last time Mookie Betts struck out in a regular-season game.
All right, so I'm writing this under the far-fetched assumption that Betts never strikes out again, and can you really blame me?