Huge homers from Crawford and Marrero
Brandon Crawford hit the ball over the leftfield wall and ran the bases quicker than usual.
He didn’t want to be on the field long. He didn’t want to break down. So he ran quickly and ducked into the dugout.
The Giants beat the Rockies 8-2 at AT&T Park on an emotional Friday night for Crawford, the shortstop who has been grieving the recent death of his wife’s sister.
Manager Bruce Bochy met with Crawford on Thursday and told him he could take a few days off. Crawford said he wanted to play. On the field, he thought, he could take a break from mourning.
Then he hit a home run Friday. As he began
to run, his thoughts quickly turned to Jennifer Pippin, a mother of two.
“I tried to get around the bases as fast as I could,” Crawford said in a quiet clubhouse long after the game. “That one was for Jen. That one was for my sister-in-law.”
Crawford got another hit, a run-scoring single during a four-run rally in the seventh inning, and played his usual brand of sparkling defense as Johnny Cueto improved his record to 3-0 on a 5-7 team.
But the home run is what the Crawfords will remember. Brandon’s wife, Jalynne, tweeted shortly thereafter that her sister was screaming for Brandon in heaven and that it “brought tears to my eyes!!”
Just before crossing the plate after hitting home runs, Crawford looks to the sky and points upward. He did it Friday in a “little extra special” moment.
“Something like that,” Crawford said, “I think you know there’s somebody greater out there that’s looking over you. I know she was watching this game tonight, and I’m glad I was able to do something for her.
“When she was at home, she was always watching every game. I’m sure she’s still watching down on us.”
Teammate Chris Marrero also hit a home run, the first of his career.
Marrero made the team out of spring training as a platoon left fielder because of his power, having homered eight times in Arizona, but he had been 1-for-18 with seven strikeouts since the season opened.
Bochy played Marrero against left-hander Tyler Anderson, and Marrero swung like it was mid-March and 90 degrees at Scottsdale Stadium, clobbering Anderson’s 2-2 changeup.
The homer was Marrero’s first in 144 big-league at-bats dating to his days with the 2011 and 2013 Nationals. He’s 28, in his 12th professional season, and that homer made those 4,005 minor-league atbats worthwhile.
“You think about these moments when you’re first starting to play baseball,” Marrero said. “I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in my career. I battled a little at the beginning of the season but never lost confidence in myself. I’m happy I could do it in front of the home fans. It’s definitely a moment I’ll never forget the rest of my life.”
The Giants led 4-0 in the fourth inning. The Rockies scored twice in a fifth-inning rally, during which second baseman Joe Panik made a bases-loaded error, but the Giants put it away with four in the seventh.
Crawford contributed an RBI single, as did Hunter Pence and Eduardo Nuñez.
Cueto surrendered two runs and six hits in seven innings, and Derek Law and Cory Gearrin finished up.