A stunning collapse
Bullpen and a big mistake erases Cueto’s dominant start as A’s win
Gabe Kapler surely did not want his first game at the helm in the Bay Bridge rivalry be crazy. Crazy can be good. It can also hurt, really hurt. Maybe Bob Melvin, managing his 41st game in the series, might have spared a second to feel for Kapler while celebrating a game the A’s should not have won.
Oakland celebrated an 87, 10inning victory at Oracle Park after it struck for five runs in the ninth to tie it, aided by an incomprehensible mistake by Giants first baseman Wilmer Flores that fueled a rally that ended with Stephen Piscotty’s tying grand slam.
Matt Chapman, who started the 10th inning as the free runner on second, scored on Mark Canha’s oneout sacrifice fly. The Giants had no answer against Liam Hendricks, and so it ended.
Trevor Gott got a huge out to start the ninth, retiring Chapman on a popup, before Matt Olson hit what looked to be an inconsequential solo homer.
After Gott walked Mark Canha, Flores fielded Robbie Grossman’s groundball and started toward first base. All he had to do was step on the bag. The Giants would have two outs, a fourrun lead and one Athletic on second base.
But Flores stepped, turned and tried to throw to second in a bid to get Canha. Shortstop Brandon Crawford came off the bag as he took the throw and tagged Canha, but too late.
Kapler persuaded the umpires to look at the play on vid
eo. It was upheld and Oakland had two runners on still with one out.
Gott then hit Khris Davis with a twostrike pitch to load the bases for Piscotty, who sent his slam into the leftfield seats to tie the game 77 as the A’s dugout exploded in cheers — which did not end there.
Kapler went to Tyler Rogers, who allowed a Sean Murphy single and Marcus Semien double.
The Giants had to play the infield in, and Rogers rebounded to strike out Chad Pinder and Chapman to preserve the tie.
Flores singled with one out in the Giants’ half of the ninth for his fourth hit, but with two on and two outs Pablo Sandoval (7for43) grounded out to send the game into extras.
Ruined was a great seven innings from Johnny Cueto, who took a onehit shutout into the seventh and walked off with a 62 lead.
Erased were the good feelings from a homer and three RBIs from Evan Longoria and Hunter Pence’s second threerun homer in a span of eight atbats since Tuesday night in Houston.
In front of what has to be the largest assemblage of paper people in the majors, Longoria hit a solo homer in the first inning to launch a threeRBI night. It would have been four if not for Canha’s catch while banging into the centerfield wall to end the sixth inning.
Longoria’s twoRBI single in the fourth gave Cueto breathing room as he pitched the longest game by a Giant this season by innings and pitches (104).
Kapler visited Cueto in the middle of the seventh inning and but let him finish on an 85degree night.
The Giants scored six of their runs against starter Jesus Luzardo, who was advanced a day after the A’s scratched Frankie Montas with a sore back.
Luzardo is no picnic, but he is not the reigning American League Player of the Week, as Montas is, and Luzardo is lefthanded. That already made it an easier night for the Giants, who entered with a winning record in games started by lefties at 43. They were 49 in rightystarted games.
Things might change, but for the moment the Giants’ righthanded batters are hitting better.
That especially goes for Donovan Solano, who returned from a twogame injury absence and lined a single to leftcenter to start the third inning, extending his hit streak to 15 games.
Flores shot a oneout single just under shortstop Semien’s backhand glove for another single ahead of Pence’s threerun homer.
He crushed the ball at 105 mph and it flew 406 feet, where it likely would have been caught before the Giants moved their fences in.
Canha drifted back as if he had a shot at it, and kept drifting, until he leaped at the fence in front of the new visitors bullpen and saw the ball sail over.
Before Tuesday, Pence had not hit a threerun homer since 2017 against the A’s.