San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Late rally against Brewers produces victory
Sorry, Doug Mirabelli. You’re out. Stephen Vogt is in. Mirabelli Alley is now Vogtville.
Any catcher who triples twice in a game deserves the honor. On a Saturday afternoon that turned out brilliantly for the Giants, Vogt became the team’s first catcher to do it in 35 years. If the Giants erect a fence to shorten right-center field at Oracle Park, Vogt might be the last for another 35.
“That’s a ballplayer,” Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner said after the Giants overcame deficits of 5-1 and 6-5 to beat the Brewers 8-7. “He’s fun to watch. He gives it all he’s got, and everybody appreciates that. He’s a guy you can pull for.”
Unless you play for Milwaukee, which benefited from Vogt’s bat, glove and presence during a 2017 push that fell one win shy of a playoff berth.
Now Vogt is a 34-year-old journeyman giving the Giants everything that made him a fan and clubhouse favorite in Oakland for more than four seasons.
His triples were only part of his contribution to the Giants’ fourth straight win, which ensured a series victory against a first-place team and their first winning homestand since August.
Vogt also had a sacrifice fly as the Giants scored thrice in the fifth inning without a hit. In the eighth, after he had squatted for 131 pitches in a game approaching three hours, Vogt legged a two-out infield hit for an RBI that proved crucial.
It gave the Giants an insurance run they needed to survive Christian Yelich’s 26th homer with two outs in the ninth off another ex-Brewer, Will Smith.
Ryan Braun’s single then put the potential tying run on, but rookie left fielder Mike Yastrzemski stunned the Brewers and preserved the win when he raced to left-center and dived to catch a Yasmani Grandal drive.
“Amazing,” Smith said. “He gets the save today, for sure.”
But let the record show that Smith, not Yastrzemski, is 18for-18.
The Giants had 15 hits to go with the 10 in Friday night’s win.
Brandon Crawford, who had just three hits in nearly two weeks since his two-homer game in Baltimore, suddenly came alive with a single and two doubles. When Yelich bobbled Crawford’s second double, in the seventh inning, Kevin Pillar scored the go-ahead run in a 6-6 game.
Vogt started the rally with his second triple, which he smashed into Vogtville. His first triple actually went elsewhere. He hit a high drive off the bricks in right that ricocheted away from the outfielders.
Vogt has always run well for a catcher. Mirabelli, a Giants catcher from 1996-2000, was built a little different. He was a double-wide trailer who was … not fast.
When Mirabelli tripled into that huge gap in 2000, during the Giants’ first regular-season series at their new ballpark, that distant triangle got its name.
Mirabelli had two triples that year. The only Giants catcher since 1930 to hit two in a game before Vogt was Steve Nicosia (1984).
Manager Bruce Bochy, who noted that he had two triples in his entire nine-year career, was more impressed by Vogt’s infield hit late in the game. Vogt called it second nature.
“I like to joke, the fastest human being on the planet is a baseball player that smells a hit,” Vogt said. “We’re running pound for pound as fast as a human can run when we smell a hit.”
He could not remember hitting two triples in a game, maybe in high school or travel ball. But he seemed more impressed with Yastrzemski’s game-ending catch
“Just sheer elation right there when he caught it,” Vogt said. “That’s a big win for us, to take a series from these guys and have a chance to sweep them tomorrow. We’re playing some good baseball.”