© D. Ross Cameron | 2021 Sep 17
Inside Paul Herman’s orange drawstring bag rested 11 baseballs. Herman, 21, had been busy, showing up to Oracle Park Friday early to shag batting practice home runs. But he separated one from the batch, stashing it instead in his back pocket.
This wasn’t a batting practice ball. This was the real deal.
Herman, a lifelong Giants fan, made a leaping grab atop the arcade in the first inning, robbing Brandon Belt of the Giants’ 91st splash homer of the year. After he snagged Belt’s 26th home run of the season — a 109.9 mph blast measured as his hardest-hit home run in the statcast era — Herman slapped hands with other fans in the right field standing area.
The Captain’s home run landed in the hands of Herman, who’s worn a duct taped “C” on his jersey chest during every game since Belt did it in Chicago on Sept. 10. It also tied the game at 2-2.
The National League’s most prolific home run-hitting team sent four more out of the park Friday, including Belt’s. Brandon Crawford’s second-inning opposite field bomb — his 21st — gave the Giants a 3-2 lead. LaMonte Wade Jr.’s glorious home run over everyone into McCovey Cove added another run. The greatest of them all came in the bottom of the ninth, after Tyler Rogers blew the two-run lead, off Donovan Solano’s bat in his first plate appearance since coming down with COVID-19.
Herman only went home with the first homer, but the Giants (93-52) hung on to recover from Tyler Rogers’ blown save to win, 6-5, in extra innings. Now at 227 home runs on the season, the 2021 Giants have the second-most in a single season in franchise history, behind only the 2001 club who crushed 235. Crawford scored the game-winning run not on a homer, but by racing from third base and sliding head-first off a Kevin Gausman sacrifice fly in the 11th inning.
We caught up with the fan who caught Belt's homer. He's been rocking the "C" since the Cubs series. pic.twitter.com/51FFUxvsID
— KNBR (@KNBR) September 18, 2021
Coincidentally, Herman also is the founder and owner of an Instagram account dedicated to Logan Webb — the Giants’ starter Friday. As Herman’s favorite Giant delivered the first pitch of the game, the Dodgers fell 3-1 to the Reds in Cincinnati, making San Francisco’s division lead 1.5 games before the win.
The first two Braves batters made it look like Webb would coast through Atlanta’s lineup like he did the last time he faced it, when he pitched seven scoreless innings in a 9-0 win on Aug. 28. In two starts on the season against Atlanta, he’d allowed one earned run in 13 innings. Then he struck out leadoff man Ozzie Albies on three pitches and Jorge Soler on four. Friday was going to be more of the same — the dominant same.
But 2020 NL MVP Freddie Freeman found the gap between first and second for a two-out single. Austin Riley moved him to second with a flare into shallow right center. Adam Duvall scored them both with a double into the deep right field corner.
On the season entering Friday, Webb had held opposing batters to a .212 batting average with two outs. He’d only allowed five first-inning earned runs all year.
But after the first-inning aberration, Webb settled in to deal six scoreless frames. He recorded his 10th quality start in his last 11 outings, striking out nine across seven innings pitched. And along those came the cracks.
Belt in the first. Crawford in the second. Wade Jr. into the water in the fourth.
Each was hit over 100 mph off the bat, and Belt’s and Wade Jr.’s behemoths traveled over 400 feet. Crawford’s 21st matched his career-high for a season, while Belt and Wade Jr. have been building on theirs for some time now.
That’s a LaMonumental dinger ? pic.twitter.com/nPHhAsp7su
— KNBR (@KNBR) September 18, 2021
None of the home runs were the hardest hit balls of the night, though. That distinction belongs to Austin Riley, who roped a Webb sinker 110.1 mph off the bat into deep short. The expected average on that barrel was .640, but that didn’t consider Crawford’s gold glove. The veteran ranged to his right, dove, popped up and made the throw to easily nab Riley, who tipped his helmet toward Crawford as he retreated to the visitor’s dugout.
In the box score, Riley’s out showed up as one of nine groundouts Webb induced. In the top of the seventh, he crossed the 100-pitch mark while retiring pinch-hitter Ehire Adrianza, leaving his offense with a 4-2 lead.
Webb handed the ball off to Dominic Leone for the eighth inning. It would likely normally be Tyler Rogers’ responsibility but Jake McGee’s oblique strain shifts relievers’ responsibilities around. Leone’s been flexible all year, and he retired Albies, Soler and Freeman in order.
But Rogers entered to “Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant and was immediately rocked. Two hard-hit singles preceded Austin Riley’s three-run home run to give Atlanta its first lead since the first inning. The Giants likely didn’t expect McGee’s void to make such a drastic impact, so instantly.
Kevin Gausman walk-off sac fly. Just like they drew it up pic.twitter.com/sRUmSflXlJ
— KNBR (@KNBR) September 18, 2021
In the bottom of the ninth, with the Giants down to their last out, Solano turned on a 2-2 slider over the plate, jacking the game-tying home run over the yellow Chevron car down the left field line. It was Solano’s second unbelievable ninth-inning shot of the year and came on his third live swing since contracting coronavirus Aug. 27. It was also SF’s 16th pinch-hit home run of the year, one shy of the single-season record.
There was no way the Giants were going to lose after that magic. Tony Watson and Camilo Doval worked hitless high leverage innings, and Kevin Gausman pinch-hit for Camilo Doval because SF ran out of position players. His delightfully weird pinch-hit sacrifice fly that scored Crawford from third was thrilling, but strangely felt overshadowed by Solano’s towering ninth-inning slam.
Whenever he loses the adrenaline-jolting late-inning nerves, Herman can sleep well knowing his big souvenir didn’t come from out of a losing effort — even if he didn’t leave with the best home run ball of the night.