Yaz saves

Walk-off #3

A one-run deficit felt insurmountable in this series against the Cincinnati Reds. Down 6-1 though?

Just when the magic of this charmed season appeared to be wearing off, the San Francisco Giants plated seven late-inning runs, topped off by Mike Yastrzemski’s 2-run Splash Hit, to salvage a 8-6 win.

This game ended up being a tale of two innings — and frankly, an apt recap would be Dickens’s first line: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

Cincinnati’s 5-run 3rd was definitely the “worst of times”, sending the Giants spiraling towards sweep.

Despite dominant outings from their longtime ace and up-and-coming starter in the last two games, the Giants had been completely handcuffed by Reds pitching. Handing out three more goose eggs on Wednesday, starter Nick Martinez had run up San Francisco’s scoreless drought to 21 straight innings just as Cincinnati erupted for five against Justin Verlander.

Erupted might not be the most accurate verb. Justin Verlander had strolled through the first six batters he faced. He had struck out four in two innings, including striking out the side on 11 pitches in the 2nd. Cincinnati’s rally kicked off with a one-out walk and a well-struck single by Austin Wynns that deflected off Matt Chapman’s glove before squirreling into left field. Should I have got that? Was that gloveable? These would be the nagging questions Giant defenders would ask themselves for the remainder of the inning. The Reds’ next four hits didn’t register an expected batting average above .280 nor would any of them qualify as “hard-hit” according to Statcast’s definition of the term.

TJ Friedl’s RBI double that scraped off the arcade had an xBA on the interstate. Espinal followed it with an infield single to load the bases before Elly De La Cruz drilled an inside slider into the dirt in front of home before the baseball skipped 90 feet up the line and kicked off the glove of a leaping LaMonte Wade Jr. into right field for a 2-RBI double.

The toughest ball in the inning though came off the bat of Gavin Lux.

How this one was ruled a hit by the official scorekeeper is beyond me — but a routine grounder just to the right of second base should result in an out. Instead it rolled, not past, but through Tyler Fitzgerald’s ethereal form for another two runs.

To answer the previous question: Yes, Fitz, it was gloveable. Clearly Fitzgerald thought so too, he was already making his throw home before he had actually caught the ball. An error — let’s call it what it is — similar to one he made during the 6th inning of Friday’s game when he missed a grounder trying to rush a throw to the plate.

Verlander threw 34 pitches in that 3rd inning. Less weathered individuals probably would’ve called it quits after that. But after retiring the next two batters without incident, he went on to pitch clean 4th and 5th innings. He would’ve finished off the 6th too had it not been for another misstep by Fitzgerald who, on a two-out grounder towards the middle that Willy Adames fielded, had broke for the ball first, before redirecting to the bag. A wrong initial move meant he was out-of-position and received Adames’s throw in motion while blindly searching for second base with his big toe. He didn’t find it. Everyone was safe on the “error” by Adames, and instead of Verlander walking off the mound with a done-and-dusted 6th under his belt, the Reds received the gift of an extra out by transforming it into another run on consecutive walks.

5.2 innings pitched, 6 runs (5 earned) on 5 hits and 3 walks is a pretty ugly pitching line and definitely the worst of his three appearances as a Giant. It was also his best performance so far. He struck out 9 and logged 90 pitches operating pretty much exclusively with a two-pitch mix of fastball and slider. His fastball averaged in the mid-90s and topped out at 98 MPH. The slider generated a 55% whiff rate off 20 swings. Though still a little ticked off by the unfortunate breaks in the 3rd, Verlander noted that it was probably the best he had felt on a mound in years.

The added run for the Reds in the top of the frame was a good indicator of how the game was going at the time. Cincinnati’s sixth didn’t require a hit. The pitching and defense were handing out runs. Meanwhile, the Giants had twice as many players thrown out a home in the previous five innings than they had runs in the series. Any well-struck ball, despite its glowing Statcast qualifications, found its way into the web of a Cincinnati glove. No surefire scoring opportunity was guaranteed. Lead runners, ripe for advancing, withered on the base path vines. In the 5th, Patrick Bailey’s double placed runners at second and third with nobody out and…nobody scored. Through five innings, the Giants were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position — their only RBI hit, Jung Hoo Lee’s triple in the 4th, came with a runner on first.

But something shifted in the bottom of the 6th. The odds and probabilities of solid contact finding gaps started to revert back to the mean after a period of unfavorable skewing. Hits started falling.

Jung Hoo Lee, after singling to leaf-off the frame, idled on first through back-to-back strikeouts by Chapman (0-for-12, 1 BB in series) and Heliot Ramos before advancing to third on a double by Yaz. A spiked change-up from Martinez allowed Lee to score. Two pitches later Wilmer Flores brought Yaz home with a single that chased Martinez from the game.

Forced to the right-side by southpaw reliever, Taylor Rogers, Bailey drove the sixth pitch of the at-bat over the head of Jake Fraley for his first hit of the year right-handed. As the ball kicked around the warning track of faraway right-center, speed-demons Flores and Bailey busted tail for 270 feet of base path with Flo scoring easily and Bailey sliding safely into third. In a 1-2 count, Fitzgerald made up for some shoddy defense with another RBI knock to get San Francisco within one.

Though it felt inevitable, with the vibes high and offense resurrected, the Giants would have to wait for the tying run. Willy Adames nearly knocked in Fitzgerald in the 6th if not for a nice play by third baseman Santiago Espinal. Jung Hoo Lee led off the 7th with a double, but Chapman, Ramos or Yaz couldn’t bring him home.

Meanwhile the bullpen held strong and kept the lead within reach. Randy Rodríguez, Tyler Rogers, Ryan Walker and Erik Miller teamed up to allow just one hit over the final four frames. Rogers struck out the side for the seventh time in his career — and first time in nearly two years.

It wasn’t until the 8th — the first pitch of the 8th — when Tony Santillan tried to sneak an inside fastball past the bat of Wilmer Flores that the Giants tied it up.

Emilio Pagán tried something similar in the 10th. 95.5 MPH, round it up to 96, right on the inside corner. A good pitch met by a better swing.