McCutchen’s walk-off ninthinning single gives Giants 5-4 win; A’s bats slumber in 4-0 loss at Dodger Stadium.
Ten games into the 2018 season, the Giants have a rotation that features one pitcher who has made as many as 30 big-league starts after Johnny Cueto sprained his left ankle and joined Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija on the disabled list Tuesday.
Until Cueto and Samardzija return, next week in Arizona if all goes well, the Giants will play a game of Let’s Stay Afloat. Every win might feel like two, especially when they can overcome a 440-foot Paul Goldschmidt homer in the ninth inning and still walk off smiling.
For the second time in four games, Andrew McCutchen provided the winning hit Tuesday night. He shot a first-pitch single into left-center field with one out in the ninth to score Kelby Tomlinson for a 5-4 victory at AT&T Park after Jorge De La Rosa walked the bases
loaded.
The clubhouse celebration after McCutchen’s 14th-inning homer against the Dodgers on Saturday night was wild. This one? “A little safer, to say the least,” McCutchen said. “It was fun, though.”
The Giants returned to .500 at 5-5, the definition of staying afloat, and won Tyler Beede’s major-league debut. Beede spotted Arizona two firstinning runs in a no-decision. He hit a batter and became the first Giants pitcher to walk five in his big-league debut since Tim Lincecum in 2007.
Beede did not allow another run over his final three innings.
“A lot of thoughts come to mind,” Beede said. “At the end of the day, I kept the team in position to win. It was an incredible win at the end. There are a lot of things I can break down about this start. I was not my sharpest. I was not efficient. I have a lot to work on, but I limited them to two runs.”
On deck is left-hander Andrew Suarez, who will start Wednesday’s series and homestand finale, marking the first time since Bob Knepper and Frank Riccelli in 1976 that two Giants will make their majorleague debut starts in consecutive games.
The current rotation is Beede, Suarez, relatively inexperienced Ty Blach and Chris Stratton, plus old man Derek Holland with his 186 bigleague starts.
Patrick Corbin blanked the Giants for five innings Tuesday. They seemed headed for another lifeless loss after scoring just twice in the two games after Saturday’s 7-5 win over the Dodgers.
But they jumped ahead 3-2 in the sixth when Gorkys Hernandez, Austin Jackson and Brandon Belt singled to load the bases and all scored without a hit. McCutchen walked to get one run home. Buster Posey and Hunter Pence hit sacrifice flies.
Before McCutchen, the Giants had gone 37 innings without an unintentional walk while striking out 48 times in the interim. In the ninth, Tomlinson, Jackson (intentionally) and Belt all walkeding to set up McCutchen’s winning hit demonstrated patience that had been missing.
As McCutchen watched the ninth inning unfold, he thought, “This is going to happen again,” meaning another chance to win the game, a position he loves.
Reliever Tony Watson saw that when they were teammates in Pittsburgh.
“He relishes those opportunities,” Watson said. “That’s what superstars do.”
The Giants had taken a 4-3 lead in the eighth on a throwing error by catcher Alex Avila after the Diamondbacks tied the game with two doubles off Josh Osich in the seventh. McCutchen got a bad read on Jarrod Dyson’s leadoff liner, which he thought he should have caught.
Hunter Strickland blew his first save of the season with two outs in the ninth when Goldschmidt hit his first home run. That merely teed it up for McCutchen to get another game-winning hit.
“They’re rare. You don’t get those opportunities a whole lot,” McCutchen said. “You love those situations. They leave a lasting impression on the fans, on your teammates. It’s always cool.”