After Smith falters, offense comes up big
GIANTS 8, ROCKIES 4
DENVER — Looking at wildcard standings in July is silly until it isn’t.
The Giants spent much of the 2019 season with the secondworst record in the National League. Then they climbed over the Mets, then the Reds, then the Pirates.
With Tuesday night’s 84,10inning victory at Coors Field, the most difficult yet inspired in
Kevin Pillar of the Giants makes the first of two diving grabs in center field in the eighth against the Rockies at Coors Field. He made another in the 10th.
a fourgame win streak, the Giants leapfrogged the Padres and caught the Rockies.
That leaves the Giants tied for fourth among the teams chasing the second wild card, three games back.
The “how” in this victory was just as important as the score.
Will Smith blew a 41 lead in the ninth when Trevor Story hit a leadoff home run and Ian Desmond tied it with a tworun
drive over the centerfield wall.
So the Giants retreated to their bat rack and scored four in the 10th after Colorado’s closer, Wade Davis, walked Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval with one out.
Alex Dickerson, Brandon Crawford and Mike Yastrzemski each hit singles to drive in a run. Dickerson’s hit was his fourth of the game. Yastrzemski, who already had a homer and single, drove in his third run.
And just to prove the Giants are living right, they scored a fourth run when Kevin Pillar hit a ball through the legs of sixtime Gold Glove third baseman Nolan Arenado.
Mark Melancon got the final three outs.
After saving 23 in a row in the first half to earn an AllStar nod, Smith has blown two of his three chances on this trip, but the Giants came back to win both games. Smith had a “sort of ” save. He struck out his final two hitters with a man aboard to get the game into extras, in which the offense thrived.
Yastrzemski, Joe Panik and Dickerson drove in the Giants’ first three runs before Yastrzemski took Chad Bettis deep in the ninth for his seventh home run.
Dickerson’s third hit came in the eighth with two strikes against Scott Oberg, one of the league’s toughest relievers, after Brandon Belt drew a leadoff walk and Posey executed a hitandrun single.
Pillar contributed two hits and continued to play Gold Gloveworthy defense in center field, with diving catch after diving catch. He robbed Story for the second out of the 10th, with a man on, to quell another Colorado uprising.
Not long ago, examining the standings was an exercise in selfflagellation for Giants fans. Now, with tradedecision day two weeks away, they become pertinent, especially the way they have played leading up to July 31.
The Giants are 51 on the trip and will send Shaun Anderson to the mound with a shot at their first fourgame sweep in Denver since 2011.
They have won 11 of their past 13 games and, at 4649, are three games under .500 for the first time since they were 1114 on April 24.
The Giants benefited from having the Good Drew Pomeranz on the mound.
In Pomeranz’s first start at Coors since 2016, the onetime Colorado pitcher held the Rockies to three hits and a run in fiveplus innings.
In the first three games of the series, starters Jeff Samardzija, Dereck Rodriguez and Pomeranz held the Rockies to four earned runs in 162⁄3 innings.
Pomeranz had a twohit shutout through five but has the shortest leash in the rotation. He rarely sees a hitter three times.
Once he issued his only walk to sixthinning leadoff man Garrett Hampson and allowed a Charlie Blackmon single, manager Bruce Bochy invited Trevor Gott to preserve a 20 lead.
Story got a run home with a sharp grounder that should have been a scoring double play, but for the third time on the trip, second baseman Joe Panik could not field a grounder cleanly.
With a run in and Story at first base, Gott hit Nolan Arenado with a pitch on what appeared to be his left hand, but got the double play he needed off Daniel Murphy’s bat to walk off the mound with a 21 lead.