San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Wade’s late home run provides big lift for S.F.
No one expected the Dodgers to fall entirely out of the NL West race even as the Giants were reeling off win after win. Then Los Angeles acquired the trade deadline’s biggest piece, Max Scherzer, and the charge began in earnest.
The Giants have a lot of fight left in them, even as the Dodgers loom. Saturday at the Coliseum, with San Francisco down a run, LaMonte Wade Jr. delivered yet another game-changing homer, clobbering a two-run pinch-hit shot off Lou Trivino in the ninth, the winning blow in a 6-5 comeback victory.
“We don’t expect the Dodgers to go away,” first baseman Brandon Belt said. “But we’re not going to go away either.”
The Giants maintained their 11⁄2-game lead over Los Angeles, which wrapped up its own win about five minutes before Belt walked to set the stage for Wade’s blast. Wade provided two huge singles on the Giants’ most recent road trip in comeback wins, and he’s 6-for-11 in the ninth inning this season,
A’s reliever Lou Trivino reacts after giving up a two-run home run to the Giants’ LaMonte Wade Jr. (background) in the ninth. 3-for-5 in extra innings and he’s batting .343 in late-and-close situations.
“He’s shown up at-bat after at-bat late in games and he’s just been huge for us,” Belt said.
“Just calm and relaxed and focused on putting together a good at-bat,” Wade said when asked about his mind-set in tight games. “You know, it was just such a great game. The offense was able to come from behind and put together some real strong at-bats, and I just wanted to follow suit and do the same thing.”
Did Belt compliment Wade when he got back to the dugout? “I didn’t have to say anything to him,” Belt said. “I think he knows he’s a badass. That’s just the way it is.”
Until Wade turned things around, there were times Saturday where the Giants looked distinctly out of sorts, particularly just an inning earlier when, in the eighth with two on and nobody out, San Francisco unraveled. Curt Casali, one of the better hitters on the club from mid-June on, popped up a
bunt attempt called from the bench. Then, Brandon Crawford, breaking on his own, was thrown out in a rundown on a steal attempt when Jake Diekman whirled and spotted him going. Austin Slater struck out to end the inning.
“That inning was near disastrous,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “The eighth inning was one we’d like to quickly turn the page on — and the ninth was certainly rewarding.”
The offense isn’t particularly versatile, as those two innings showed. San Francisco has scored 51.7% of its runs via homers, most in the majors, and the team is 65-28 when hitting at least one homer and 42-13 when hitting two or more.
The Giants have had few real funks this season, but between some starting pitching that looks a little fatigued and an offense that’s not entirely clicking, the team needs to step things up and quickly.
Even the usually reliable defense hasn’t played to its usual high standard lately; a threebase error by third baseman Wilmer Flores on the A’s first batter of the game led to three unearned runs against All-Star Kevin Gausman. Josh Harrison doubled in a run in the third and a wild pitch by Gausman sent in another in the fourth. Gausman, who’d won his previous three starts, went just 3
2⁄3 innings and gave up six hits, a walk, and two earned runs among the five he allowed.
“My split is still really good, but I feel like it hasn’t had that extra little bite towards the end. And where I usually get a swing and miss, maybe I’ll get more foul balls,” Gausman said. “The book is out on me. I think guys know what they’re going to get; so if I’m not on, they can do a good job of fouling pitches off.”
Jarlín García saved the day with 21⁄3 scoreless innings, matching his longest outing of the season. “I love giving him the ball after me,” Gausman said. “Anytime he comes in, you feel confident that he’s going to attack the hitter. And it seems like big situations kind of elevate his game.”
Kris Bryant smacked a tworun homer off lefty Sean Manaea in the second to cut the Giants’ deficit to 3-2, and Belt and Darin Ruf hit back-to-back shots off lefty Andrew Chafin in the seventh totrim Oakland’s lead to 5-4.
The Giants’ 185 homers are their most in a season since 2002, when they hit 198, 46 of them by Barry Bonds and 37 by Jeff Kent. This year’s team features no one, to date, with 20 homers.