SF Giants have an old "friend" to thank for comical walk-off win

The SF Giants won in walk-off fashion yet again on Sunday, defeating the Texas Rangers on a Little League home run in the bottom of the 9th inning. The goofiness all got started thanks to the former Giants pitcher Luke Jackson.

You have probably already seen the play, but even if you have it is worth watching at least a couple dozen more times:

SF Giants have old "friend" to thank for Little League walk-off

Heliot Ramos hit a slow roller towards third base that Jackson had to field barehanded, making a wild throw to first base that went down the right field line. Ramos did not realize nobody had the ball so he slowed down going into second before catching his third base coach Matt Williams and realizing he needed to make it to third base.

The fact that he stopped essentially baited the first baseman into trying to throw Ramos out at third but that throw was wild as well and got past the third baseman. Ramos got up and headed for home as Jackson, who was backing up the throw at third base, bobbled the ball while trying to pick it up before his desperate throw home was too late.

It was an insane way to win a game and Jackson, with his miscues, helped the Giants out way more than he did when he was a member of the team in 2023 and 2024.

The veteran reliever signed with San Francisco in 2023 to a two-year $11.5 million contract as he was coming off of Tommy John surgery. He put up decent numbers that season with a 2.97 ERA in 33 and 1/3 innings pitched.

However, he followed that up with a brutal 2024 season in San Francisco as he had a 5.09 ERA in 53 innings pitched. It seemed very likely that the Giants were going to release him, but they ended up trading him and Jorge Soler to the Atlanta Braves.

Despite his struggles last season, he signed with the Rangers and has now somewhat surprisingly become their closer. He already has eight saves on the year and has a 3.38 ERA so thus far he has been much improved over last season.

Relievers are a strange breed, often vacillating from being really good one year to having a down year the next. It is a tough job coming out of the bullpen so perhaps this is to be expected.

While signing Jackson did not work out very well for the Giants, he always did seem like a well-liked guy in the clubhouse. Despite this, his mistakes which led to the Giants winning another game in memorable fashion may be some sort of cosmic justice for the games he cost San Francisco last season.