Giants out-Padres Padres in extra innings win

It seems unholy when the Padres start games at 3:40, and I've figured out why. It makes you feel like you're jet-lagged, like you're sitting in a hotel room, thinking "It shouldn't still be light. It's dinner time? Wait, where am I? What time is it?" Then add in the torpor of the typical Giants/Padres game in Petco, and you've basically flown to Sri Lanka and back. In the fourth game of the season, the Giants were scoreless for 11 innings at Petco Park. Hey, in January, you were begging for this, you fool.

They won, though. The Giants won. They faced Ian Kennedy and Odrisamer Despaigne, both mini-bosses in the same horrible video game, in Petco Park and won.

Here's the kicker: I'm not sure if they deserved to. The Giants induced four double plays, which is great fun. Except the baserunners had to be there in the first place. There were leadoff walks and dumb errors all over the place. There were hard-hit balls mixed in among the scoreless innings. When the Giants won on Wednesday night against the Diamondbacks, there was a sense of inevitability. It looked like a team playing well against a team less inclined to play well. On Thursday, over 12 innings, the one-word description of the game is "phew."

I'll take "phew." It's cleaner than a lot of the words I've uttered after the Petco games. The Giants won, and I don't care how they did it. Now let me figure out how they did it.

★★★

They did it on an error, if you want to get technical. The Padres shortstop went out, the outfielder came in, there was a miscommunication, and whoopsie. You want to laugh at that sort of thing, to make it seem like it's evidence of some character flaw. Except the very next inning the Giants did the same thing. Angel Pagan called off Norichika Aoki, as is his right, and Aoki played the ball like he had earbuds in. Pagan was less than thrilled.

 

pic.twitter.com/Hu8ByxpxZR

— Grant Brisbee (@mccoveychron) April 10, 2015

That's how the baseball works, they tell me. Game of inches, they say. . Clint Barmes couldn't catch the ball in the 12th, but Norichika Aoki could. Every 0-0 game devolves into nonsense after a while. The trick is to be on the right side of the nonsense. Also, the nonsense is capricious and spiteful, by definition. Enjoy this example, then!

★★★

Just because Justin Maxwell got a game-winning hit, it doesn't mean he's the solution to whatever problem you had in your head. Don't make me dredge up video of Matt Downs winning it in the 12th at Petco in 2010.

Okay, I'm not made of stone. But while it's not wise to pretend a base hit is more than a base hit, it's still a good time to point out that Maxwell is an excellent fit for the roster. He plays all three outfield positions, and he has legitimate power. He's the right-handed outfielder the Giants have been looking for since, I don't know, Dustan Mohr. He's the Cole Gillaspie that San Francisco deserves, and the one it needs right now.

★★★

One of about five or six plays from Brandon Crawford that kept the Padres from scoring:

This is the most obvious one, of course. It's the double play from Game 7, played in reverse in search of hidden messages. There were no demonic messages, only love. Brandon Crawford saves. Baseballs. From going to the outfield. He was sublime in this game.

Which brings us to Tim Hudson, who would have been a concern or gripe in this game if, say, Wilmer Flores were playing shortstop for the Giants. He was scoreless, which is good. He didn't have the customary command, which is bad. His sinker bugged a lot of hitters and led to a lot of double plays, which is good. Let's agree to give this game an incomplete, then. It was the best of first-half Hudson mixed with the worst of second-half Hudson, with nary a run mixed in. I'll take the result and be skeptical of the process.

★★★

Casey McGehee made a brutal error, hit into a ghastly double play, and couldn't come up with a diving stop in extra innings. Don't turn on him. Goodness, not yet. Just side-eye him for a bit. Don't let him spend too much time alone. See what he's up to. We were probably skeptical about Michael Morse at this time last year, too.

But we were also skeptical of Miguel Tejada. Just keep an eye on McGehee, that's all I'm saying. It wasn't the best baseball exhibition. The Giants won, though, so we can mostly ignore it. Remember that dinger for insurance runs, like, 22 hours ago? That was cool.

 

★★★

I was going to write that we're happy right now because of a blown call, in part, and that we should remember this the next time the Giants lose on a blown call.

Except Sergio Romo's slider to Wil Myers was perfect. From Brooks Baseball:

 

Good ol' #9. I don't have the video handy, but the lasers suggest it was a perfect pitch.

★★★

Here's the epitome of "It's funny if your guy does it."

Looked like a rock. Was probably gum:

Pagan said there was a piece of gum in batters box. He tried to throw it, it stuck to his glove and ended up under Norris, who got pissed.

— Alex Pavlovic (@AlexPavlovic) April 10, 2015

Maybe it was unintentional. But Pagan called for time before the previous pitch and Norris might have chirped a little about the timing. Then you get that. Tempers ... well, they didn't flare. Tempers were put on DEFCON HEY BRO, and for the rest of the at-bat, you could feel the intensity. Then Pagan hit a triple off Craig Kimbrel that is easily the best triple of the year so far. Possibly the only triple of the year so far. It would have been so magnificent to see Pagan score.

As is, it was a footnote. Still, tell me Pagan wasn't trolling with that gum. It's funny when our guy does it. So damned funny.