San Francisco Giants Rally Late, Walk Off in Extra Innings

A day after erupting for nine runs, the San Francisco Giants rallied late, and thanks in large part to stellar pitching, walked it off in the 14th inning.

The San Francisco Giants did something they have not done much of lately, they won back-to-back ball games — this one in dramatic fashion.

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The game started rather quiet for both teams offensively in the early going. Instead, all the noise came from spectacular defensive plays.

In the first inning, Ryder Jones looked like a veteran making a bare handed play on a slow roller to third, ending the inning. In the bottom of the inning, Ian Desmond made a sliding catch to rob Joe Panik of a hit and in the second inning, Brandon Crawford showed incredible awareness jumping to field a high chopper, finding the bag in time to nail the runner, and firing to first to complete the double play.

The Giants were able to break through in the third inning. Gorkys Hernandez got the rally started on a one out single and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt by Matt Cain. Then, with two outs in the inning, Denard Span came through with an RBI single to give the Giants a 1-0 lead.

Matt Cain started on the bump in this one and cruised through the first five innings. Unfortunately, one huge mistake determined his entire outing. After retiring Charlie Blackmon to begin the inning, Cain allowed a hit to Raimel Tapia, who then stole second, prompting Cain to intentionally walk Nolan Arenado.

Normally, this would sound like the right move to make, since Arenado absolutely kills the Giants every time he plays them, but Cain followed by giving up a three-run home run to Mark Reynolds to give the Rockies the lead.

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In desperation of a rally, the Giants responded in the eighth inning. Buster Posey led the inning off with a single, but was thrown out at second after a shallow fly ball off the bat of Brandon Belt fell just out of Arenado’s reach. Crawford moved Belt all the way to third on a single to right field. Then, Kelby Tomlinson delivered with the biggest hit of the night to that point for the Giants, an RBI single to tie the game.

A wild pitch moved both runners into scoring position, giving Hernandez the perfect opportunity to give the Giants the lead. However, like most of the 2017 season, the offense could not cash in, leaving the runners stranded on back-to-back strikeouts by Hernandez and Nick Hundley to end the inning.

From there, the game would go on to extra innings where both bullpens pitched tremendously. It was not until the 14th inning, in which we saw a Cory Gearrin at-bat, that Denard Span was able to knock in Gorkys Hernandez, who doubled earlier in the inning, to send the Giants home with their second win in a row.

Gearrin got the win in this one after throwing three shutout innings, his second of the year.

Game Notes:

The pitching was excellent: Cain turned in a quality start, finishing with a line of 6 IP, 6 hits, 3 ER, and 3 BB, his only mistake was the home run. The bullpen followed with eight scoreless innings of their own … apparently they stretched today.

Don’t run on Buster Posey: This should be well known by now, but you are not going to have much luck trying to steal on Posey. The former MVP gunned down two runners in extra innings, negating the Rockies from sparking any sort of rally.

Next: Who on the Giants is safe?

The Giants will be back in action on Wednesday at 12:45 p.m., as Ty Blach will matchup against Kyle Freeland.