Span strikes at midnight for win
Two wins in a row. Believe it. The Giants have won consecutive games in June. Finally.
In one of the most disappointing seasons in Giants history, a two-game win streak is well worth celebrating, and the party broke out when the clock struck midnight.
That’s when Denard Span hit a ball through the right side in the 14th inning of Tuesday’s game at AT&T Park to clinch a 4-3 victory over the Rockies, giving the Giants consecutive wins for the first time since May 27-28.
“It feels good to hear the music two days straight,” Span said of the postgame tunes in the clubhouse.
Gorkys Hernandez hit a one-out double off Chad Qualls, and after Cory Gearrin struck out — yes, Cory Gearrin, the winning pitcher — Span collected his third hit in seven at-bats.
Span said while he was preparing to hit, he had hoped Gearrin would have won it himself. A relief pitcher getting a walk-off hit to get himself the win — “that would’ve been a cool story,” Span said. “He looked like he knew what he was doing. I could tell he was into that at-bat.”
Of course he was. A 1.000 batting average was at stake. Gearrin singled in his only other big-league at-bat, in May of last season at Denver. Now he’s a mere .500 hitter.
In retrospect, especially because Gearrin had already pitched three innings and wasn’t going a fourth, manager Bruce Bochy said he should have batted Matt Moore because Moore, as a starting pitcher, has more experience swinging a bat.
Bochy joked that he let Gearrin hit because of his perfect average. “I’d gladly sacrifice a 1.000 average for a walk-off win,” Gearrin said.
The Giants had just one baserunner the previous five innings, Brandon Belt, who was doubled off. So it was crucial to do everything else right late in the game. Buster Posey threw out two runners trying to steal, the Brandons (Belt and Crawford) executed a splendid 3-6-3 double play and the bullpen was marvelous.
After Matt Cain pitched six innings and got burned by one pitch, a curve to Mark Reynolds, who hit a three-run homer, six Giants relievers combined for eight scoreless innings. Gearrin has two wins this year, one in a 14-inning game and the other in a 17-inning game.
“He became my long man once we reached extra innings,” Bochy said, “and what a beautiful job he did.”
The Giants seemed destined to be burned by Reynolds’ homer, but they rallied for a 3-3 tie in the eighth, courtesy of a bloop pinch single by Kelby Tomlinson. The ball sailed softly into right field to score Belt and put the Giants in position to take the lead, but Jake McGee struck out Hernandez and Nick Hundley.
Cain opened with five scoreless innings but scuffled in the sixth. Raimel Tapia, the replacement for DJ LeMahieu, who felt a groin cramp in the fourth inning, singled and stole second. Nolan Arenado was intentionally walked, which made sense at the time considering the damage he routinely inflicts on the Giants.
In this case, it backfired. Cain’s curve to Reynolds was a bit low and a bit in, not where Posey was expecting. Reynolds’ homer was his 19th.
The Giants scored the first run back in the third inning on Span’s two-out single and made it a 3-2 game on Crawford’s sacrifice fly in the sixth.
“The fight is there. It’s nice to see them rewarded,” Bochy said. “I know the results haven’t been great, but it’s good to win one like this.”
Span makes no secret he’s no fan of birds, but he spent much of the night in center field as an unusually large flock of seagulls did their thing at China Basin. “Those birds were dropping stuff out there,” Span said. “You know what, I’ve got no time for this. They’ve got no respect for anybody in the outfield. Yeah, I was ready to go home.”