SF Giants’ offense opens floodgates for late comeback vs. Angels
The Giants have been sorely lacking in big hits over the last month.
Patrick Bailey broke the trend in the ninth inning Monday night, down one run with two men on base.
The switch-hitting rookie catcher hit a blooper into left field, sending Randal Grichuk tumbling toward the foul line and allowing Wilmer Flores and J.D. Davis to race home and score the tying and winning runs in an eventual 8-3 win over the Angels.
The Giants’ first win away from Oracle Park in nine games was aided by closer Carlos Estevez’s ninth-inning meltdown, while the home team suffered its seventh straight loss since the trade deadline. Ironically, one of the Giants’ most dramatic comebacks ended a streak of nine straight games decided by two or fewer runs, thanks to a two-RBI single from newcomer Mark Mathias and two more insurance runs in a six-run ninth inning.
The Giants hadn’t had a four-run rally in one inning since mid-June.
Flores led off the inning with his second hit of the night, a single. Davis walked for the third time, reaching base. And Bailey, batting left-handed, went the other way on Estevez’s middle-in slider, his third time on base after reaching four times on Sunday.
Until the floodgates opened in the ninth, it appeared that another sloppy offensive effort and a couple of defensive gaffes would cost them.
A.J. Pollock, who was acquired along with Mathias at the trade deadline, misplayed a fly ball in the seventh inning, allowing the Angels to score the game-winning run. This came only an inning after the Giants were charged with two errors on the play that tied the game, when Luis Matos and Patrick Bailey both struggled with the baseball.
Logan Webb held the Angels to two runs (one earned), but was pulled with two outs in the fifth.
Webb’s pitch count reached triple digits by the middle of the sixth inning after the Angels fouled off 29 of his 106 pitches.
Cron hit the 103rd pitch into left field to tie the game at one, and Mickey Moniak ended Webb’s night on the 106th pitch, lining it up the middle to score Cron and give the Angels their first lead, 2-1. Webb’s failure to complete six innings was only the fifth time in 24 starts this season.
Cron scored from first on what appeared to be an aggressive throw by Angels third base coach Bill Haselman.
The Giants, on the other hand, were charged with two errors on the play: one to Matos, who bobbled the ball around in center field, and another to Bailey, who couldn’t handle the relay throw. Jansen Visconti, the home plate umpire, initially called Cron out before noticing the ball rolling away.
In the seventh inning, Pollock, who is known for his strong defense, misread a line drive off the bat of Grichuk, allowing the ball to reach the wall and Grichuk to walk into third base. The Angels took a 3-2 lead after the next batter, Luis Rengifo, singled into right field, erasing Davis’ game-tying homer from a half-inning earlier.
Davis’ homer was his 15th of the season — and a no-brainer, at 110.4 mph off the bat and traveling an estimated 431 feet — but it was only the Giants’ 50th since the beginning of June, tying them for the fewest in the majors as of Monday.
Flores, who was immune to the team’s slump, extended his on-base streak to 18 games in the fourth inning with a double that sparked the game’s first scoring rally. Flores’ on-base streak matches a career high, and his 1.093 OPS since the beginning of June ranks third in the majors (min: 130 PA).
