Giants: Bullpen sparkles and S.F. rallies from big deficit in the early going to top Pirates 7-6.
PITTSBURGH — More than 33,000 fans piled into PNC Park on Wednesday. Two or three were rooting for the Pirates. The rest were friends and relatives of Pittsburgh native Derek Law, or so it seemed.
On a night none of those folks will forget, Law not only pitched at home for the first time as a major-leaguer, but he also threw two shutdown innings that allowed the Gi- ants to overcome a five-run deficit and beat the Pirates 7-6.
When Law’s people started chanting, “D-Law! D-Law!” late in the game, the 25-
year-old rookie got strange looks from teammates.
“We heard their little fan section,” Joe Panik said.
“I think people heard his little fan section back in San Francisco,” Brandon Belt chimed in. And Law? “No words can describe that,” he said. “It felt like a home game, honestly. I knew I had a lot of people here. I didn’t know it was that many.”
If Law was the top story of the Giants’ 10th victory in 11 games, the bullpen as a whole was the principal sidebar. Law, Hunter Strickland, Josh Osich, Cory Gearrin and Santiago Casilla combined for six shutout innings after John Jaso, Gregory Polanco and Jung Ho Kang homered against Jeff Samardzija in his three innings, matching his shortest career start.
When he threw his last pitch, the Giants were down 6-1.
The Giants knew if they could stanch the bleeding, they could come back against an ineffective Francisco Liriano and a weak Pittsburgh bullpen. They scored a run in the fourth, two in the fifth and three in the sixth, taking a 7-6 lead on Panik’s two-run double off Jared Hughes.
The Giants are 5-1 on a trip that ends Thursday. Panik has three of the game-winning hits, all in the sixth inning or later.
Brandon Crawford started the winning rally with a single. Ramiro Peña hit an RBI double and pinch-hitter Jarrett Parker had a sharp infield hit before Panik batted with one out and sliced a liner to left that ticked off Polanco’s glove. Peña and Parker scored the game’s final runs.
“Joe’s got a base-hit bat,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “He uses the whole field, and he’s tough to strike out. He’s a guy you want up there when you need a big hit.”
Bochy led a chorus of Giants who credited the bullpen, particularly Law, whose people attended the first two games of the series without seeing him pitch. Bochy felt a little pressure to find a spot for Law.
“What he did was stop their momentum,” Bochy said. “That allowed us to come back.”
Law pitched twice before at PNC as a high schooler. Now, he was sitting in the bullpen and telling fellow rookie Chris Stratton how crazy it would be to get a win at the park.
“It was even crazier than I thought,” Law said.
Law pitched a perfect fourth and wriggled out of a two-on, no-out jam in the fifth by striking out Kang and Matt Joyce, then getting a Josh Harrison groundball. The relievers behind him gave no quarter, either.
“Strickland comes in throwing 98. Good luck hitting that,” Law said. “Osich comes in throwing 98. Good luck hitting that. Gearrin comes in throwing that (Sergio) Romo-esque slider. Good luck hitting that. When you’ve got guys like that coming into the game, you’re pretty confident you’re going to win.”
Casilla got his 15th save, ending the game by striking out Polanco as Buster Posey nailed Jaso trying to steal on the 3-2 pitch. That gave the Giants consecutive wins at PNC Park in the same series for the first time since 2005.