Long blast ends long night
By the end, there were more birds than fans, more yawns than cheers. The crowd kept thinning, and the relievers kept dealing.
Forty-three minutes past midnight Saturday morning, the Giants pulled out a 3-2 victory over the Reds when Buster Posey homered with one out in the 17th inning.
Posey knew it was gone on contact and delightfully exhaled as he began his trot. Approaching the plate, he tossed his helmet skyward and raised his arms in celebration, his momentous swing ending a momentous game.
“I think Buster had enough. That was huge for us,” said manager Bruce Bochy, who was out of relievers and would have used Matt Cain as his next pitcher. Yes, Buster had enough. “It’s not necessarily enjoyable to play 17 innings,” he said. “That’s just a fact. It comes to a point where your body is like, enough is enough.”
Posey, who caught the entire game, hit his fourth homer in five days and third career walkoff homer, connecting on the first pitch he saw from Robert Stephenson.
It was the latest a Giant has hit a walk-off homer in franchise history, surpassing Willie Mays’ 16th-inning homer off Warren Spahn in a classic 1963 game that ended 1-0 and was won by Juan Marichal.
This game ended 5 hours and 28 minutes after Johnny Cueto’s first pitch, the first of 481 in the game, and congratulations to the few thousand (few hundred?) dedicated folks who stuck around.
They made the birds, who swarmed over the field throughout extra innings, wait a bit longer for their postgame scraps.
Only one game in the 18season China Basin era lasted longer, the 1-0 loss to the Diamondbacks on May 29, 2001. Eighteen innings.
“Hey, it’s part of baseball,” Bochy said. “Much needed win. If we lost this one, I mean, who knows how that’s going to affect us?”
The Giants beat the Reds for the first time in five tries this season, and the winning run was the game’s first since the fifth inning.
Cueto threw eight innings of two-run, five-hit, 119-pitch ball, and seven relievers combined for nine scoreless innings. Steven Okert walked the first batter in the 10th, Josh Osich the second batter in the 11th, but the bullpen got outs when needed.
The Giants were in trouble in the 14th — runners at second and third with one out. Shortstop Brandon Crawford fielded Jose Peraza’s grounder and threw out Scott Schebler at the plate. Reliever Bryan Morris then picked off Scooter Gennett at second, Crawford sneaking behind him for the tag.
In the 16th, the Reds loaded the bases against Cory Gearrin, who struck out Billy Hamilton to end the inning. Gearrin also stranded two in the 17th and got the win.
“That’s a hard-fought game on both sides,” Bochy said. “Great pitching. It started with Cueto for us. The job our bullpen did, they got in jams and made pitches when they had to.”
Denard Span opened the first inning with a home run, his second in two days after he came off the disabled list. The Reds responded in the second as Gennett hit an RBI triple and scored on Tucker Barnhart’s sacrifice fly.
The Giants bunted their way to the tying run in the fifth. Eduardo Nuñez and Justin Ruggiano bunted for hits, and Cueto sacrificed. Span singled to score Nuñez but was thrown out at second, thinking the throw home would not be cut off.
The Reds had another outfield assist in the eighth when Brandon Belt made the final out trying to stretch a double into a triple.
Nuñez, playing left field, made an impressive catch of Adam Duvall’s foul popup, running over a bullpen mound with his momentum knocking him to the dirt.
Plate umpire Tony Randazzo was diagnosed with a concussion after exiting following the 13th inning. He was drilled on the mask by a fifth-inning pitch and worked eight more innings.
“It’s not necessarily enjoyable to play 17 innings . ... It comes to a point where your body is like, enough is enough.” Buster Posey