We didn’t get to see Santiago Casilla hit. The Giants left the bases loaded three times. A whole lot of people are going to be either late for work on Wednesday morning or next to useless on the job due to this game. But the Giants beat the Dodgers in 12 innings by a score of 3-2, and it’s hard to formulate any complaints about that. Well, unless you’re a Dodgers fan, and if you are then you probably aren’t spending a lot of time on this site.
Hector Sanchez came through with the game-winning single past ginger second baseman Justin Turner, driving in Brandon Crawford and sending what was left of the crowd into hysterics before they stumbled into the aisles trying to remember where they parked their cars. “Wait, we took BART? Uhhhhhhh …”
And in return for sending us all home, Sanchez was kneed repeatedly in the rump by Brandon Belt.
Via @gidget
Sanchez said he needed to get the postgame interview over with quickly because his mother arrived about three hours earlier and waited for him in the parking lot the whole time. But he gave us a few minutes because, well, why not? It was already 12:40 am, and by that point everyone was delirious.
So what was Sanchez thinking when he stepped to the plate with Brandon Crawford (who played a great overall game) on second base, then third after a Brandon League wild pitch?
“I was hungry. No, I’m just kidding,” said Sanchez, who talked about the beating he took from a bunch of guys wearing No. 42 jerseys.
“It’s tough. Every time, these guys kill you when you get a walk-off. But it’s a great moment to enjoy. It’s probably the only punches that don’t hurt you.”
I could go into all the painful parts of this game from the Giants’ perspective, but it’s 1:15 am as I’m writing this, so … they left 15 guys on base. That about does it. Luckily for San Francisco, the Dodgers left 13 men on, thanks to a bullpen that looks better by the day and a scrappy effort from Tim Lincecum.
Lincecum did well to allow just one run. The pitch he threw on a 3-2 count to Juan Uribe, a hanging 81-mph slider in the middle of the plate, deserved to be sent 10 rows deep in the left field bleachers. But Lincecum survived what looked like an impossible task in the fourth inning, when the Dodgers loaded the bases with one out and Lincecum responded by striking out Uribe and Tim Federowicz.
Lincecum seemed to pick up steam after that with a relatively quiet fifth inning, but by then he had thrown 93 pitches and Bruce Bochy replaced him with David Huff in the sixth. Huff was the first of seven relievers used by the Giants, and that’s all they carry. Over seven innings the entire bullpen allowed just one run, when ginger second baseman Turner knocked in Juan Uribe in the seventh to give the Dodgers a 2-1 lead.
The game appeared lost at that point, and I had in fact tried to get myself out of the press box early by writing a few paragraphs about a 2-1 defeat. But the Giants came back in the ninth when Angel Pagan singled and Brandon Belt hit the Giants’ first and only extra-base hit of the night, a double down the left field line that brought in Pagan when Andre Ethier couldn’t come up with the ball cleanly.
Extra BASGs
— Mike Morse got hit in the elbow by a Josh Beckett fastball, but he stayed in the game. Afterward I saw him singing along to “The Man” by Aloe Blacc (the song in all those Beats ads) at his locker.
— Lincecum’s strikeout-to-walk ratio is a robust 17-to-1 these days, and I asked him if that was what he was aiming for this season. Get it? “Aiming for”? Leave me alone, it’s time for last call.
“Yeah, definitely. I think I’m trying to attack the zone a little bit more. Guys are being aggressive off me, so I’ve got to work around that a little bit more,” he said.
— For any of you wondering, what Belt was doing to Sanchez up above was not a “turkey tap.” Turkey taps are done to the frontal, err, region.
— Tuesday night’s (and Wednesday morning’s) game didn’t move all that quickly early on, and ended up lasting 4:54. The famous 16-inning game between the Giants and the Milwaukee Braves, where both Warren Spahn and Juan Marichal went the distance, lasted 4:10.
