But wouldnt it be kind of lame for the guy to be referring to just one strike season, or lower level minor league baseball as an example of a team winning the most games in a season but missing the playoffs?
I’ll reiterate my belief that a game which ends at the conclusion of regulation play, after the visitor ups in the ninth, has gone exactly nine innings. With the home team ahead, the ninth inning is complete after the visitors’ turn.
If the outcome is certain, nothing else can be required to “complete” it.
Well, the whole exercise (of the original presentation) might be seen as lame, since its apparent purpose is to make baseball appear stranger than it really is–to make people not versed in details of minor rules and unusual circumstances feel alienated.
But by that reasoning, playing 8.5 innings would count only as a “complete game” in its own internal logic. Which, of course, it actually does. But just as sweeping the World Series doesn’t mean you won seven games, winning in 8.5 innings doesn’t mean you completed 9.0 innings.