Somehow, the Giants rallied for a 10th inning win over Arizona, 4-3. By rights, the story of this game should belong to Chris Stratton and Evan Longoria. Stratton pitched seven plus innings, gave up five hits, one run, and struck out eight. Longoria went 3-for-4 with a walk and was a triple short of a cycle. He also hit a two-run home run in the sixth inning that would have been enough to get the Giants a win. Unfortunately, two of Stratton’s strike outs were against Paul Goldschmidt - and Goldschmidt strike outs are never free.
With Hunter Strickland pitching in the ninth, Goldschmidt kicked off the inning with a double, which was followed by a double from A.J. Pollock that knocked him in to tie the game, handing Strickland his second blown save of the season.
Blessedly, the Giants didn’t take very long to get the lead back, with Brandon Belt hitting his 100th career home run in the tenth, scoring two runs.
Thank you, Brandon Belt! #SFGiants pic.twitter.com/wWCoQt9Q2V
— San Francisco Giants (@SFGiants) April 19, 2018
As happy as I was to see this, it came about seven innings too late for my taste, because I’m an entitled millennial. In the third inning, Belt came up with the bases loaded and even got a pitch right down the middle while I was consumed with my ceremonial chants and prayers for a grand slam. It was not to be, as Belt struck out and continued to look somewhat defeated at the plate.
However, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and complain about a go-ahead home run in the tenth inning on a work night. No, sir. I believed in him the whole time.
[Stenographer interrupts, hands me the transcript of the 10th inning, noting my conversation with the television broadcast in which Mike Krukow said he was due and I said “Not gonna happen” because I was grumpy and resigned to my fate of a baseball game that never ends.]
I’m not reading this. What are you even doing in my house?
/clears throat
Anyway, it was nice to see both Longoria and Belt start to get out of their offensive funk. The two of them have shouldered the brunt of the fan base’s frustration about the offensive woes of this team, so it was a real feel-good story to have them be the difference-makers of the game. This was a feeling that lasted until the bottom of the 10th.
You ever have that feeling where you can’t tell if you’ve got food poisoning or if your body is reacting to the Giants’ bullpen? They really ought to come up with a term for that. Anyway, Cory Gearrin came in to pitch the 10th and it....turned out fine?
I know, I know. All’s well that ends well. But this inning started about as well as the previous inning and I’m not sure anyone thought it was going to end well.
Gearrin gave up a double to John Ryan Murphy, followed by a double to David Peralta to score a run and put the tying run in scoring position. Goldschmidt was intentionally walked, Daniel Descalso walked on four pitches to load the bases. And then, with two outs, Alex Avila grounded out to Belt, who threw to a hustling Gearrin for the out, and all was well. All was well.
The Giants struck out 13 times tonight. So clearly all is not well. Chris Stratton got more hits than Austin Jackson, Hunter Pence and Brandon Crawford combined. They stranded nine runners. Pence had a pretty bad error, and Austin Jackson was pretty close to having one as well, in the same inning.
/takes a deep sniff of the dinger candle
But all is well...tonight.