A bunt and an infield single boosted the San Francisco Giants’ win probability to 100% Monday night in a 5-4, 11-inning win over the St. Louis Cardinals that turned Oracle Paek into Shay Stadium.
Shay Whitcomb hit a chopper to shortstop against a drawn-in infield to score ghost runner Nate Furman as the Giants worked late on Labor Day. Sure. it was not the most impressive walk-off hit we’ve ever seen, but after the Cardinals scored the tying run on two infield singles in the 9th and a go-ahead run on a shallow pop fly with the Giants’ infield in in the 10th, the boys in black and orange will take it.
Logan Webb will be complaining to his shop steward about unfair working conditions after striking out eight and giving up just three hits in 6 innings, but leaving with another no-decision. He threw only one truly bad pitch, a hanging slider that Alec Burleson crushed into McCovey Cove, a no-doubt, 431-shoot blast where kayakers instinctively knew to avoid the white-hot baseball until it cooled down.
Webb left the game with a 3-1 lead, thanks to a nice defensive play at first from Bryce Eldridge.
He could credit his two-run cushion to a doubles party from Eldridge and Rafael Devers. Devers hit his 35th double, just missing his 36th homer, to knock in Turner Hill in the first inning, then hit his league-leading 36th double ahead of Eldridge’s 21st double of the season in the bottom of the 5th.
Eldridge knocked in another run on a sacrifice fly in the 3rd inning, then plated ghost runner Turner Hill (two runs) to tie the game in the 10th. The Cardinals walked Devers ahead of Eldridge twice on Monday, and the rookie responded with an RBI each time.
It could have been over in the 10th. With Devers on second and Eldridge on first with no one out, Tony Vitello played for the sac fly. He ordered Jonah Cox (slashing .287/.326/.494) to bunt the runners over, which he did, which led to an intentional walk to Jung Hoo Lee. Drew Gilbert just needed to hit a medium-depth fly ball to win the game. Instead, he hit a ball that went about nine inches for a C-1B double play.
Still, the gambit worked in the 11th inning, with Vitello also rearranging his defense. Cox, who moved to second base when Gilbert pinch-hit for Osleivis Basabe in the 9th, went back to center field, with Furman taking over at second. The pop-up falling in wasn’t really Cox’s fault, and the 9th-inning infield hits happened with him in the outfield, but the move still paid off.
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Furman was the runner in place of Gilbert, Drew Cavanaugh’s sac bunt got him to third, and Whitcomb finished things off with his second hit of the game, bringing his on-base streak to five games.
Jason Foley got his third win of the season by getting through the 11th inning unscathed, getting a weak groundout to the catcher with a runner on third just like his opposite number. Then, with runners on second and third after a walk and a stolen base, Foley got Jose Fermin to ground out on the eighth pitch of his at-bat.
Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol made the box score interesting by pinch-running for catcher Ivan Herrera in the 8th, only to see the substitute got station-to-station and end up stranded at third. He replaced the pinch-runner with Pedro Pages, then pinch-hit Fermin for Pages in the 10th, where he tied the game with a sac fly.
Fermin stayed in the game to play second base, while designated hitter Leo Bernal, of the magical pop-up, caught the final two innings. That meant St. Louis lost its DH, and three Cardinals relievers appeared in the box score in the first batting position for St. Louis, though none actually swung the bat — Cesar Prieto had a pinch-walk in the 11th.
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Hill got hosed by an umpire review for the second time in three days, when a throw to first clearly pulled Burleson off the bag but Hill was still called out.
It looked just as obvious as the hit-by-pitch that was ruled a foul ball from Saturday’s game, one that got Vitello ejected. The only conclusion we can draw is that Hill clearly slept with a replay official’s wife.
The Giants have no won 8 of their last 15 games and are two games clear of the Elk Grove Athletics for 27th place in the major leagues. Perhaps more important is that the team has reached 60 wins, meaning they only need three move to avoid a 100-loss season.
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They need five more wins to finish better than the 2017 Giants, who went 64-98 in a season where Madison Bumgarner finished with more home runs than the team’s primary left fielder despite missing three months because of a dirt bike crash. “Worst Giants team in a decade” sounds so much better than “Worst Giants team in 41 years,” after all.
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