In a sport like baseball, there are many ways any given extra-innings game can end. You have your run-of-the-mill bloopers or blasts to center/left/right field. There might even be a walk or a wild pitch that gives the runner a chance to run across home plate.
But a walk-off balk — where a pitcher (by definition) flinches or makes a motion like they’re going to pitch but doesn’t — is unheard of.
Yet, that’s precisely what happened at the end of a tense matchup between the Reds and Rays on Friday night. Beforehand, Tampa Bay was not only favored with the spread (-1.5) but in the moneyline, too (-178). And in a 1-1 game in the 10th inning, with the Rays’ Matt Wisler on the mound and the Reds’ Tyler Naquin batting, bettors felt the pain of the all-too-rare balk-off bad beat:
