The Giants have seemingly invented new ways to lose ballgames in 2017, but in the bottom half of the ninth inning in Milwaukee, it appeared as though they wouldn’t need to get creative.
Over the past year, Bruce Bochy’s ball club has proven it could blow a lead, and for the third time this season, it was closer Mark Melancon’s turn to do so.
Pitching in his first save situation since May 27, Melancon spoiled three hitless innings of relief from Bryan Morris, left-hander Josh Osich and set-up man Hunter Strickland by surrendering a solo home run to Brewers’ second baseman Eric Sogard and a game-tying single to third baseman Travis Shaw.
In the blink of an eye, a 5-3 advantage turned into Giants torture, and Giants torture has a funny way of playing out.
Melancon was on the verge of coughing up the game altogether, as Milwaukee put the game-winning run on third base with nobody out. But a strikeout, a sharp line out to leaping third baseman Eduardo Nunez and a groundout gave the Giants the opportunity to rise from the dead.
Truth be told, it’s hard to believe they did.
In the top half of the 10th inning, outfielder Gorkys Hernandez notched his third hit of the game, a single into left field that marked his first three-hit game since September 13, 2016. Hernandez’s single sparked a flurry of ground balls, none of which the Brewers could track down.
A would-be double-play ball off the bat of pinch-hitter Kelby Tomlinson trickled off the glove of Brewers shortstop Orlando Arcia, giving the Giants runners at the corners.
In the ensuing at-bats, a pinch-hit grounder up the middle from Hunter Pence gave the Giants the lead again, and a ground ball double off the bat of Denard Span gave them the insurance they needed.
Without ever hitting the ball more than 10 feet above the playing surface, the Giants regained their edge, and eventually closed out a 9-5 win.
Before Melancon’s meltdown, Thursday’s getaway day was shaping up to tell a feel-good story about a handful of the Giants’ role players.
With the game hanging in the balance in the top of the sixth inning, Bochy lifted starting pitcher Johnny Cueto in favor of pinch-hitter Aaron Hill, and the veteran delivered his second go-ahead double of the series with a line drive to the right-center field gap.
On Monday, Hill broke a 2-2 tie with a pinch-hit bases loaded double down the left field line that led the Giants to a 4-2 win, and on Thursday, he gave the series the potential bookend San Francisco was looking for, until Melancon’s issues forced a reset.
Hill’s double broke a 3-3 tie, and left Cueto in line for what would have been his sixth win of the season in an outing in which he had to battle for every out. For the first time since an April 21 start against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, Cueto failed to pitch into the sixth inning, but Hill and rookie left fielder Austin Slater picked him up.
Slater, who made his big league debut on Friday in the Giants’ 10-0 win over the Phillies, gave the Giants a 3-2 lead on a towering home run in the top of the fourth inning. The 461-foot blast marked the longest home run hit by a San Francisco hitter this season, and was the first big fly of Slater’s career.
The Giants’ eighth round draft choice in 2014, Slater helped his cause to keep his roster spot with a 1-for-2 performance that included a hit by pitch and a walk. With San Francisco set to activate former Rangers reliever Sam Dyson on Friday, the Giants will need to option a player back to Triple-A to make room.
Slater, Hernandez, relief pitcher Bryan Morris, and rookie Orlando Calixte are all candidates to lose their spot when the team activates Dyson, and Calixte was the only member of the quartet who failed to help his cause in Thursday’s game.
A day after Calixte went 0-for-3 with a strike out, a double play and an error in left field, Morris threw 2/3 of an inning and notched a strikeout in relief of Cueto, while Hernandez registered his fourth multi-hit game of the season. A career .195 hitter, Hernandez may not be long for the roster once Michael Morse and Jarrett Parker return from the disabled list, but for the time being, his three-hit outing should help keep him around.
Even though the Giants finished the road trip on a high note, they found themselves 14.0 games behind the first-place Colorado Rockies to begin the day, and 12.0 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks in the wild-card race.
But after staring a nightmare scenario dead in the face in the bottom half of the ninth, the Giants can think about the standings tomorrow, and think about a series-splitting victory on their four and a half hour flight home.