Giants slip n’ slide through extras for another win

The San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies followed their Memorial Day nail biter with another close game Tuesday night, sweating through 11 innings of early summer heat.

Though runners were stranded often by both teams, the Giants continued a worrying trend in recent games of missed opportunities to score early. They stranded 5 runners over the first two innings, at one point having runners at second and third with no outs in the first. They were 0 for 8 with runners on base through the first four innings.

The Phillies scored first in the fourth, scratching a run out of a double-play ground ball that J.T. Realmuto spoiled by beating out the throw from Thairo Estrada. The Giants responded with three runs in the 5th.

The simmering offense was brought to a boil by Luis González’s bases-loaded double, followed swiftly by pinch hitter Mike Yastrzemski’s sacrifice fly. The damage was limited by the Phillies center fielder Mickey Moniak reeling in Heliot Ramos’s 106 MPH line drive to end the inning.

Philadelphia knotted the game up at 3 with two runs in the 6th. Realmuto brought in right fielder Nick Castellanos with an RBI single. Later in the inning, the Giants traded a run for two outs with Odubel Herrera’s double play ball.

RHP Jakob Junis turned in a typical start for San Francisco allowing 1 run on 3 hits over 4.1 innings. Junis was pulled after only throwing sixty some pitches for Jarlín García to face the lefty heavy top of the lineup. After a lead-off walk to Kyle Schwarber, García escaped the jam.

After an atypical dicey showing from John Brebbia in the 6th, San Francisco relievers Jake McGee, Tyler Rogers and Dominic Leone linked together four spotless frames to push the game into extras.

I live in Philadelphia and Phillies fans are an odd breed. Like most eastern city sports populaces, they’re a cantankerous bunch. You’ve probably gathered that from the crowd’s tendency to boo or jeer or sarcastically clap and whistle at anything from an error to a visit to the mound to a reliever taking time to tie his own shoe. Whenever you mention the Phillies winning in ‘08, they’ll tell you they should’ve won in ‘09 and the team in 2010 was the best of all three. Earlier in the day, I was talking to a friend of mine at the school we work at and he was still bemoaning Gabe Kapler’s bullpen mismanagement in April of 2018.

I guess some things just can’t be forgiven. The misplays by the Phillies bullpen and defense in the 10th were ready to fall into this category of irredeemability (word?), but—blame Jon Miller for this one— “fate intervened.”

An assuming two out grounder that would have almost certainly been converted into a Giants win, hit off the second base bag and skipped over Donovan Walton’s head into the outfield, allowing the tying Philadelphia run to scoot safely home.

The Giants saw a similar hit by Ha-Seong Kim lead to four San Diego runs a week ago. It was par for the course as far as this season has been going. Things have not been coming easy.

It’s easy to shake our righteous fists at the unjust gods for these moments, but the Giants were in such a tight position because of base running errors in the top of the inning (Wilmer Flores not included).

Flores scored as the Manfred runner on the throwing error by Rhys Hoskins to pitcher Jeurys Familia covering first. It was a show of great aggressive base running—but it was only great because it worked. The Giants cashed in on a lucky break.

Then they got greedy: Joc Pederson, after advancing to second on a wild pitch, was caught too far off second on a ground ball to Hoskins. After Luis González bunted for a hit, Tommy LaStella was thrown out trying to score on a pinball single by Mike Yastrzemski that didn’t leave the infield.

The Giants ran themselves out of that inning. An inanimate object never should’ve been in the position to be an agent of fate.

San Francisco was able to find some breathing room in the 11th.

After Donovan Walton doubled in Joey Bart, Joc Pederson punctuated the end of May with a two-run homer to right-center.

Reliever José Álvarez closed out the game not without drama. With two runners on and Bryce Harper representing the tying run at the plate, the Giants elected to walk Harper to load the bases to face the fleet but light-hitting Roman Quinn. Quinn struck out. Game over. Giants win 7-4. Alright. This game has been going for five hours now. I’m tired and in bed and it’s like eighty degrees in my apartment and my window A/C unit doesn’t seem to be working. Ok. Yes. I am done. Go baseball. Go us. It’s June now.