Oakland Athletics reliever Chad Smith was given the first win of his career on Wednesday night after pitching two scoreless innings to close out an 8-4 win over the Baltimore Orioles.
And it was all thanks to an obscure rule and a scorekeeper who made the interesting decision to apply it.
Smith would have earned a save for his efforts since he entered the game in the bottom of the eighth and the A's holding a 7-4 lead.
But because reliever Jeurys Familia—who pitched the bottom of the seventh and was in the game when Oakland took the lead—had what was deemed an "ineffective" outing, giving up two runs (only one credited to him) and a passed ball while getting two outs against four hitters, the scorekeeper applied a rare rule to give Smith the win instead (h/t the Associated Press).