Garcia stroked a two-out single to left. Moments later the storm broke sending fans scrambling for shelter. Jewell again strode to the mound. This time, he summoned Nitkowski to face Brian Daubach.
The rains reached monsoon proportions while Nitkowski took his warm-up tosses. Home plate umpire Brent Persinger halted the contest. Fifty minutes later, with the rain still falling, the game was called. Indianapolis got credit for a rain-shortened 2-1 victory and Duke got the win.
Official scorer Mark Walpole, a 12-year veteran, said he checked the rulebook and consulted with several others in the press box, then awarded a save to Nitkowski – even though he hadn’t thrown a pitch.
“There are three criteria for earning a save and Nitkowski met them all,” said Walpole.
“He wasn’t the winning pitcher, he entered the game with the tying run on base and, officially, he was the last pitcher in the game.”
Had he ever heard of a similar occurrence? “No,” Walpole said with a hearty laugh. “Not at all! I’m sure it’s happened, but I’ve never seen it before.”
Nitkowski joked with teammates about saving the game. “I told them, ‘I’ll probably get a save for that,’ not even thinking it would be true,” he said. “Later on I saw the box score and, sure enough, the save was on there.”
He took plenty of ribbing about the effortless save, his second of the year. “He really worked for it,” said Indianapolis play-by-play man Howard Kellman. “All Zach did for the win was pitch seven-plus innings.”
“I’ll take ‘em any way I can get ‘em,” Nitkowski retorted. “Usually, a reliever who isn’t a closer doesn’t get many save opportunities.”
The 32-year-old Nitkowski, has seen major league service with the Reds, Tigers, Astros, Mets, Rangers, Braves and Yankees. He agreed that the scoring decision was unique.
“I have a couple of enlarged box scores of significant games from my career that people have made for me over the years,” he said. “I told my wife, I think we’ll have to throw this one up there with the rest of them.”
