Giants body slam Dodgers, intruder in inching closer to wild-card berth
Madison Bumgarner charged into second base after a two-run double, pumped his fists repeatedly and hollered like a madman. He was not yelling, “Don’t look at me” and Yasiel Puig was nowhere in sight.
The Giants have bigger fish to fry. They want to get where the Dodgers are, in the postseason, and Bumgarner was elated he helped his team move a step closer Friday night.
Bumgarner’s double was the emotional high point of a sevenrun sixth inning that shot the Giants to a 9-3 victory against Los Angeles, a critical outcome after their two wild-card competitors won earlier in the day.
The Giants remained one game behind the Mets and one ahead of the Cardinals. Manager Bruce Bochy and his crew can secure a wild card as soon as Saturday if
they can beat Clayton Kershaw behind rookie Ty Blach, whom Bochy named as the starter moments after Friday’s win.
“It’s definitely going to be exciting,” Bumgarner said after the win, his 100th. “We’ve got two games to go. We’ve got to worry about tomorrow and find a way to get a win, and go from there. You’re going to see a lot of emotion from the guys and a lot of guys step up. It’s good.”
Friday nights at AT&T Park always are electric. Throw in the Dodgers and a fight for a playoff spot, and the place was buzzing.
In the top of the fourth inning it turned into one of those crazy Friday nights of yore at Candlestick, when two diminutive protestors wearing Dodger blue ran onto the field and tried to hand the players what looked like foam flowers.
Security guards entered the fray, but Giants players did not wait.
Bumgarner cocked his fist and seemed loaded for bear when the male protester approached him. The interloper then went to the plate, where Giants catcher Buster Posey first motioned for him to stay away then pushed the man to the ground.
“He should be charged with flopping,” Posey said. “I didn’t push him that hard.”
The guy rose and ran into left field, where Angel Pagan extended a hand as if to take the flower then grabbed the man’s arm, lifted him off the ground and body slammed him onto his back as the crowd roared.
Security finally dragged the man and woman away.
“There are crazy people out there,” Pagan said. “You don’t know if your life is in danger. I didn’t want to harm him or anything. I just wanted to help security. It was going to take a long time for them to come and take him down. Bum was on a roll and I wanted him to keep going.”
The score was 2-2 at the time, after Bumgarner and Rich Hill each allowed two first-inning runs. The Dodgers used three singles in the sixth to take a 3-2 lead before manager Dave Roberts did the Giants a favor and pulled Hill after five innings and 82 pitches, as planned.
With the Dodgers ensconced in the postseason, Roberts is using this series as more of a tuneup.
Brandon McCarthy started the sixth and the Giants buried him. They scored all seven runs before they made an out, after loading the bases on a Pagan walk and singles by Brandon Crawford and Kelby Tomlinson, who twice failed to sacrifice.
Pinch-hitter Conor Gillaspie ripped a two-run double that not only gave the Giants a 4-3 lead but kept Bumgarner in the game. Without that lead, Bochy was going to hit for Bumgarner.
Instead, the big fella came to the plate, fell behind 1-2 and shot his own two-run double to left for a 6-3 lead. With McCarthy out and Josh Ravin pitching, Brandon Belt hit a three-run homer to center as a stadium full of fans waving orange towels went nuts.
Bumgarner lasted 71⁄3 innings. Assuming he does not pitch again, he ended his regular season 15-10. His 2.74 ERA and 251 strikeouts are both career bests.
Belt was hit in the right hand by a J.P. Howell pitch in the eighth inning, providing the Giants and Belt a scare. But he stayed in the game and did not appear to be seriously injured.