Giants extend season
Win over Dodgers clinches at least one-game playoff with Cardinals; victory in regular-season finale would secure wild-card berth.
Ty Blach has a steel spine. No other conclusion makes sense. There is no alternate explanation for what this 25year-old rookie accomplished Saturday in a 3-0 victory against the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw that assured the Giants will play beyond Sunday.
Asked to keep the game close against Kershaw, Blach outpitched him. Blach was throwing at AT&T Park for the first time, in his fourth bigleague game, being caught by Buster Posey for the first time, and none of that mattered in his first career win.
The lefty from Creighton University stared down the immense pressure of a game the Giants had to have and did not blink. Instead, Blach held
the regular Dodgers lineup to three hits in eight innings and became the first Giant in 25 years to pitch that many shutout frames in a start within his first four big-league games.
Posey was asked if he could think of another young pitcher who came up that huge in such a critical game.
Without even thinking, Posey said, “Yeah. Bumgarner.”
Madison Bumgarner, who won Game 4 of the 2010 World Series at 20, marveled at what he saw in front of a wild home crowd.
“Getting to watch that was pretty incredible,” Bumgarner said. “He was lights out the whole day going against one of the best pitchers in baseball. It was definitely something he will never forget.”
With Angel Pagan homering off Kershaw in the fifth to break a scoreless tie, then singling to start a two-run insurance rally in the seventh, the Giants maintained a one-game lead for the second wild card. After Matt Moore faces Kenta Maeda on Sunday, the Giants
will end Game 162 no worse than tied for that final playoff spot.
A Giants win or Cardinals loss will send the Giants to the postseason for a fourth consecutive even-numbered year. If the Giants lose and Cardinals win, the Giants fly to St. Louis for a Monday play-in for the right to face the Mets in the wild-card game in New York on Wednesday.
The Giants will count on an old friend for help. Ryan Vogelsong pitches for the Pirates
against the Cardinals on Sunday.
Blach threw 99 pitches in the best start by a Giant this early in his career since Mike Remlinger shut out the Pirates in his 1991 debut. That game was in June, not October.
When Blach threw his final pitch past Kiké Hernandez’s bat for strike three, he bounced off the mound, pumped his fist and ran to the dugout as he does after every inning.
There, Jake Peavy stood alongside Blach on the dugout
rail.
“It was a pretty special moment,” Blach said. “Peavy told me to think about all the work I put in over the years. A kid dreams of pitching in a game like this. To be able to go out there with the season on the line was pretty exciting.”
And calming at the same time.
Bruce Bochy picked Blach for the start over Albert Suarez and Matt Cain in what could have been a Salomon Torres moment. As soon as Bochy saw Blach buzz through the first inning on 12 pitches, he knew he had made the right call.
“That was one of the best pitching performances I’ve seen,” Bochy said, “with the kid having only a month in the majors, on this stage, what was at stake and who he was going up against.”
Oh yeah, Blach also became the second pitcher ever to get two hits in a game off Kershaw. The other was Craig Stammen in 2010.
The energy from the crowd soared with each shutout inning and peaked in the seventh, when Blach struck out Yasiel Puig. The decibel increase at that moment did not escape Blach. Or his catcher. “I thought one of the better things he did was have a great tempo,” Posey said. “He had no hesitation. He had confidence in what he threw. That kind of energy, you can feel it. The other team can feel it too when a guy is that confident in what he’s doing.”
The Giants have identified a front-runner for the fifth spot in the 2017 rotation, but that is for another time. In the present, Giants’ season comes down to Game 162. Moore will have a tough time living up to what Blach did in Game 161.
“I didn’t know he’d give us eight shutout innings, to be honest,” Bochy said. “He should be so proud of what he did today.”