Colorado and San Diego battled for more than six hours before the Rockies finally triumphed 2-1 after 22 innings in the longest Major League Baseball game in nearly 15 years tonight.

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Troy Tulowitzki’s RBI double with two outs in the top of the 22nd scored Willy Taveras and secured victory for Colorado after a six-hour, 16-minute marathon that ended at 1:21am in San Diego.

It was the longest game since August 31 1993, when Minnesota beat Cleveland 5-4 in 22 innings.

It was also the longest game in both the Rockies history and in the five-year history of San Diego’s Petco Park, but fell four innings short of the all-time longest – set on May 1 1920 when the Brooklyn-Boston game was declared a 1-1 tie after 26 innings.

Australian Justin Huber started in left field for the Padres, but went 0-for-3 with the bat and came out of the game in the bottom of the 10th with the scores still tied 0-0.

The game was scoreless until the 14th.

The Rockies then went ahead 1-0 when Brad Hawpe drew a bases-loaded walk off pitcher Kevin Cameron, only to have San Diego level at 1-1 when Josh Bard’s bases-loaded single off Manny Corpas brought home Kevin Kouzmanoff.

Only a fraction of the crowd of 25,984 was around to see the final out.

There was a seventh-inning stretch, a 14-inning stretch and finally, a 21st-inning stretch.

The previous longest game this season by innings was 15, on April 9, when the Cubs beat the Pirates 6-4 at Pittsburgh.

Colorado used eight pitchers, while the Padres used seven in tying a team record with 20 strikeouts.

© Reuters 2012

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