Brandon Crawford’s 10th inning walk-off home run led the San Francisco Giants to a 5-4 home win over the Colorado Rockies on April 13, 2014.
The Giants had the next day off and were getting ready to take on the hated rival Los Angeles Dodgers on April 15, which was Jackie Robinson Day in the Majors.
Tim Lincecum was making his third start of the season for San Francisco, after struggling through his first two. “The Freak” came into the game with an ugly 9.20 ERA after a couple of ugly outings against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Juan Uribe got to Lincecum in the second, hitting a second inning solo home run, putting the Dodgers up 1-0.
Lincecum settled in after that and struck out the side in the third, but some got into some trouble in the bottom of the fourth, giving up three straight singles with one out.
He kept his cool and struck out Uribe and Tim Federowicz to get out of the inning unscathed, and got through the fifth, holding L.A. to a 1-0 lead.
Meanwhile, Dodgers starter Josh Beckett was rolling, only giving up two hits through five scoreless innings, preserving the lead for his squad into the sixth.
Chris Withrow came into the for Beckett and gave up a lead-off single to Hunter Pence, who reached third base after a wild pitch. Crawford’s sacrifice fly allowed Pence to score, evening up the score at 1-1.
Justin Turner gave the Dodgers the lead back in top of the seventh inning after his one-out single off Javier Lopez brought Uribe home.
It looked like L.A. would hang on for the win, but San Francisco got some ninth inning magic.
Angel Pagan singled off Dodgers’ closer Kenley Jansen with one-out and then Brandon Belt’s double brought him home, to send the game into extra innings.
The Giants came close to ending it in the 10th, when they had runners on second and third with one out. L.A.’s Jamey Right intentionally walked Sanchez to load the bases, but was able to get out the jam, getting Pagan and Belt to pop out and keep the game tied.
It stayed that way until the bottom of the 12th inning.
Crawford hit a one-out single off Brandon League. He was able to advance to second off a Brandon Hicks ground ball.
Sanchez came up and his job was made easier when League threw a wild pitch, allowing Crawford to advance to third. Sanchez came up clutch.
He hit one up-the-middle that got past Turner at second base, bringing in Crawford to give the Giants a 3-2 win.
Sanchez had some extra incentive to finish it off. His wife and daughter had been waiting in the parking lot for the game to end.
“They’ve been waiting for 3 hours,” Sanchez said to reporters. “My daughter has school tomorrow.”
Jansen spoke after the game and knew the Dodgers blew this one.
“It is frustrating. We had that game, man,” Jansen said. “It’s going to be us and them the whole year. They never quit. They keep playing hard.”
L.A. won the NL West, finishing six games up on the Giants, who secured a wild card.
The two teams didn’t face each other in the postseason, but as has been the norm, one team completed their run with a championship, while the other team choked.
We all know how it turned out.
Who are some of your favorite lesser-known players from the 2014 Giants team?
Onto some more Giants related links:
Hunter Pence and his wife played an epic game of their own in MLB The Show (Giants.com)
The Giants, A’s and Diamondbacks are participating in a study of coronavirus antibodies (Chicago Tribune)
From around the MLB:
Arizona’s Governor is open to the state hosting the 2020 MLB season, whenever it gets going (USA TODAY)