Late explosion of runs gives Bumgarner, Giants 7-1 win in series opener.
In a tale of two pitchers, only Moronta finds relief
Just as everyone figured, Friday night’s opener of the Bay Bridge series came down to a predictable confrontation: a 31-year-old reliever making his big-league debut against an outfielder just four games deep into his majorleague career.
If it continues like this, forget everything you knew about the Giants-A’s rivalry. After years in dormancy, lacking even a shred of urgency, it has finally come to life.
The Giants won that battle between left-hander Jeremy Bleich and Steven Duggar, a tense affair grew quickly out of hand, and they headed into the foggy China Basin evening with a 7-1 victory. It sounds decisive but really wasn’t, leaning more toward riveting drama — pennant-race style.
If you’re just tuning into this season and look-
ing for snap judgments on the A’s, resist the lure. Known for their tight defense and steely late-inning nerve, they had a dropped ball in the outfield, an awkward collision that took second baseman Jed Lowrie out of the game, a pitcher falling off the mound to balk home a run, and a run-scoring wild pitch heaved by that ring-laden ex-Giant, Santiago Casilla.
In truth, this game was more about a 2-1 Giants lead through six innings and a tale of two relief pitchers. One of them stood out, like a beacon. The other got a rather bitter taste of the big time.
Madison Bumgarner had worked those six innings with style, particularly effective with a tantalizingly slow curveball that had the A’s consistently off-balance. But suddenly, after a single and two walks, the bases were loaded in the seventh. That inevitable A’s comeback — their specialty all season — seemed close at hand.
What followed was a perfect illustration why the Giants are so high on Reyes Moronta out of the bullpen. He can be maddeningly off-kilter at times, but few pitchers can match his brand of electric stuff.
Try a 97 mph fastball, right on the corner, followed by a 79 mph changeup to another perfect location. That tends to mess with a man’s timing, and he dismissed the rally by striking out Chad Pinder, getting Jonathan Lucroy on a liner to third and retiring pinch-hitter Nick Martini on a grounder to short.
To that point, the Giants’ offense was notable only in the case of Buster Posey, who has trouble turning on fastballs with that sore right hip but summoned yet another bit of tough-catcher’s courage, ripping a run-scoring single to left off A’s starter Edwin Jackson in the sixth. But now the bases were loaded in the seventh, with nobody out and Duggar due up.
The A’s had managed to win 19 of their previous 24 games with a shortage of left-handed relievers, and as of Thursday, they had just one, Ryan Buchter. Thus came the call for Bleich, who had been toiling at Triple-A Nashville and wondering if, at his advanced age, he’d ever get a look at the show.
It was an equally crucial moment for Duggar, by all rights primed for a big future in the Giants’ outfield. He had already doubled in this game, eventually to score in the fourth, and now he hammered another down the right-field line, driving home two runs for a 4-1 lead.
As their chances vanished for another comeback, the A’s lamented their glance at the out-of-town scoreboard, showing a Seattle loss to Colorado. The A’s remain five games behind the Mariners in their run for a wild-card spot in the American League, and some have said this six-game set with the Giants (continuing after the All-Star break in Oakland) will be crucial to their trading-deadline strategy.
It’s not necessarily all that defining. Some feel the A’s should cash in the season, with a look toward next year, if they’ve fallen too far behind. It says here they should go big, and go hard, no matter what.
This is a different A’s club than recent-years versions built mostly to tease. The lineup is solid from top to bottom. Friday night’s miscues aside, they play excellent defense. They close out games with a tidy bullpen. They rank sixth in the majors in home runs with 125 (compared to the Giants’ 90). There’s a natural skepticism involved with making the postseason, given that it would be a wild-card berth against one of the American League powerhouses, but the way they’ve stood up to Boston, Cleveland and Houston this season, why should they be intimidated by anyone?
If these A’s stir pleasant memories of the past, so does this extended Bay Bridge series, remotely but sweetly connected to the old Pacific Coast League. In those days, teams faced each other for nearly a week. You’d have the San Francisco Seals facing the Oakland Oaks daily, Tuesday through Saturday, with a climactic doubleheader on Sunday.
Now that’s a series. This Bay Bridge series isn’t quite the same, but it’s still six games in a row on the schedule. May the results fit the anticipation.