Belt takes issue with strike call

The Giants blew opportunities before Brandon Belt struck out looking to end Sunday’s 10-inning loss to the Dodgers, but it still wasn’t easy to take.

Especially because the Giants thought umpire Bruce Dreckman got the call wrong.

“Tough call in the end. It’s a ball,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “That’s the way the game goes sometimes: The call goes against you, the ball doesn’t bounce your way. Certainly, it wasn’t a strike.”

Belt vehemently objected to Dreckman.

“I said it wasn’t close. He said it was close,” Belt said. “Even if it was close, close is not a strike.”

Belt pinch hit with Hunter Pence at second and two outs in a one-run game. Belt fouled off the first two offerings and worked the count to 2-2 before Kenley Jansen ended the game on a 91-mph cutter.

Belt was asked about fans who might have wondered if he should have swung at anything close with two strikes.

“It wasn’t close, though,” Belt said. “I understand. They can say that all they want to, but a ball’s a ball. If I’m going to swing at a ball, everyone’s going to be a lot more mad if I swing at a ball and miss it.”

McCutchen numbers: Andrew McCutchen will go down in elite company for Saturday’s 14th-inning walk-off homer.

He became the eighth Giant with a walk-off homer in the 14th inning or beyond. Nobody did it later in a game than Buster Posey, who beat the Reds in May with a 17th-inning homer.

The only time in the Giants Dodgers rivalry that someone hit a walk-off homer later than McCutchen? Valmy Thomas of the 1957 Giants, 15th inning.

McCutchen is the second player with six hits in a game, including a walk-off homer, following Detroit’s Jim Northrup against the A’s in 1969.

Three other Giants in the San Francisco era have had six-hit games: Jesus Alou (1964), Mike Benjamin (1995) and Brandon Crawford (2016).

McCutchen is the first player with a walk-off homer in the 14th inning or later since ... himself, on July 11, 2015. First win: Nearly lost in Saturday’s hubbub was the fact that Roberto Gomez earned his first career win. He threw 25 pitches and gave up a run on three hits in the top of the 14th.

“A lot of emotions,” Gomez said. “It was my first win, and it was against the Dodgers.”

How much longer could he have pitched? “Whatever was necessary,” Gomez said.

Bochy was out of relievers and said the next pitcher he would have used was Derek Holland, Monday’s starter.