Giants rally from five runs down to beat Pirates, 7-6.
Pittsburgh native Law brings needed relief for Giants
PITTSBURGH — Start at PNC Park, take a short trip across the Fort Duquesne Bridge, go through the Fort Pitt Tunnel and you’ll end up in the Beechview section of town. That’s where Derek Law grew up.
He attended many games here as a kid, mostly drawn by the stars on the visiting teams because the Pirates were terrible. He even took the mound here once in a summer league game, although he had to warm up on flat ground. The bullpens were off limits.
Now a major league rookie, Law stood on that mound again Wednesday. He heard his name chanted by a crowd studded with familiar faces. And on a pleasant night in which the Giants rallied for a 7-6 victory over the Pirates, Law was the winning pitcher.
The Giants trailed by five runs when Law entered in the fourth. His two shutout innings represented the first of five clutch performances by Giants relievers, allowing the club
to win on a night when launch angles did not favor Jeff Samardzija.
Ramiro Peña hit an RBI double in the sixth inning and the Giants scored two more when Joe Panik’s double glanced off Gregory Polanco’s glove in left field. The Giants (46-27) won for the 10th time in 11 games, and their 24 road victories are tops in the majors.
This was the first of those road wins, though, when chants of “D-Law” filled the stands in the ninth inning. They were so loud in the Giants dugout that Law’s teammates looked at him with disbelief.
“I was like, ‘I don’t know. That’s not me saying it,’” Law said. “I wasn’t sure if it was my family, my fiancee’s family or what. It sounded like the whole stadium, but it was just that one section. That definitely gave me chills, for sure.”
The night brought tears, too. Derek’s father, Joe Law, experienced a flood of memories as he watched his son jog from the bullpen. He pictured all those times — two dozen games a year, more or less — when they’d buy the cheap seats and Derek would find a way to sneak behind one of the dugouts.
“When he was running in from the bullpen, I cried,” said the elder Law, a former minor league right-hander who spent four days on the A’s roster in 1988 but never threw a pitch in the big leagues.
“I didn’t think I would. I’m not that kind of person. But … I just don’t know how you write this any better. It seems like fiction. It’s crazy.”
But not inconceivable. Earlier in the game, the younger Law turned to reliever Chris Stratton and remarked on how wild it would be to be the winning pitcher.
It wouldn’t be Samardzija, who matched the shortest outing of his career while allowing six runs in three innings. John Jaso hit a home run on the first pitch Samardzija threw, Polanco connected for a three-run shot in the second inning and Jung Ho Kang went deep to start the third.
Winning a game when your starter gets knocked out early requires two things: a sustained offensive rally or two, and a bullpen that holds the line. The Giants received both to take Samardzija off the hook.
Peña, getting a start at third base against Pirates left-hander Francisco Liriano, started the comeback with an RBI single in the second inning. Brandon Crawford singled home a run in the fourth. Both times, Mac Williamson reached base to set up the RBI chances.
The Giants made it 6-4 in the fifth when Buster Posey’s ground-rule double scored Denard Span and Angel Pagan’s sacrifice fly scored Panik. They completed their comeback in the sixth, making it 6-5 when Crawford singled and scored on Peña’s double. Peña took third on Gregor Blanco’s infield single and both scored when Panik lofted a drive into the left field corner that went off Polanco’s glove for a double.
“You want to be that guy in that spot,” Panik said. “But without the bullpen shutting the door, it was a totally different game.”
Law (2-1) threw a pair of scoreless innings while striking out three. He recorded two of those strikeouts out of the stretch in the fifth, when he beared down after Polanco and Andrew McCutchen started the inning with singles.
His two innings pleased a section or two of converted Pirates fans, who let out an audible whoop when his name was announced. Derek Law played baseball at Seton LaSalle Catholic, and his high school guidance counselor nearly bought out the entire section adjacent to the Giants bullpen.
“I mean, words can’t describe that feeling,” said Law, who is holding opponents to a .167 average over his last 11 appearances. “I walk out there and hear the chants from left field, and it was like a home game, honestly. I wasn’t ready for that. I had a lot of people here, obviously.”
n The Giants signed their top draft pick, Vanderbilt outfielder Bryan Reynolds, for a reported $1.35 million — well over the second-round slot value of $1.09 million.