Giants lose game that they never trailed in until it was over

There were 281 pitches during Friday’s baseball game between the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates. On the 281st, the Pirates took the lead for the first time.

Hell of a way to lose.

In fairness, the Giants did not lead for many of those pitches, either. It wasn’t until the eighth inning of an otherwise allergic to offense game that the Giants put a run on the board, courtesy of a solo home run from Brandon Crawford.

Since this game had a sad ending, let’s all just enjoy other videos of Brandon Crawford hitting home runs against the Pirates at PNC Park.

A 1-0 led is not ideal, but the way Kevin Gausman was dealing, it felt good enough.

Gausman took a shutout into the ninth inning, and while it always looks suspect in hindsight when a manager allows a starter to pitch the ninth and it doesn’t work, let me just nip that one in the bud. It was the right decision, emphatically. The fact that it did not work out is academic.

But it didn’t work out.

After allowing just three baserunners through the first eight innings, Gausman gave up back to back singles to start the ninth. With runners at the corners and no outs, it suddenly seemed like his brilliant game would be a loss on his record.

Jake McGee spared Gausman that cruel reality, getting out of the ninth with just one runner scoring, despite allowing a single to the first batter he faced. The Giants would live to see another inning, and Gausman would only have a no decision next to his sterling line: 8 innings, 5 hits, 0 walks, 12 strikeouts.

Brilliant.

The Giants did not score in the 10th inning, but they didn’t allow the Pirates to score either, with Tyler Rogers doing a masterful job to strand the ghost runner.

My mother — who I was seeing for the first time in 17 months — saw the ghost runner and promptly declared, “what a stupid ass rule.” Correct, mom.

But Tyler Rogers stranded him, and an 11th inning of baseball was granted. This time the Giants scored, courtesy of an Austin Slater single.

The bottom half of the inning did not go well for the Giants, with Caleb Baragar finally getting an ERA with a non-zero number in it. Adam Frazier tripled to lead things off, tying the game and putting the walk-off run 90 feet away with no outs. Baragar got a pop up, then intentionally walked the bases loaded to create a force out that was not needed. Gregory Polanco hit a sacrifice fly, and the Giants finally were trailing. And it was over.

Not a great time, so let’s just watch this Steven Duggar highlight and enjoy our nights.