Birthday boy Patrick Bailey at the heart of Giants' rout of Pirates
Patrick Bailey celebrated his 24th birthday in style, in front of a packed house at Oracle Park on Memorial Day, with two big hits, including his first left-handed homer, and a big … mound visit?
The rookie catcher knocked a two-run double to right in the second inning to send in the first two runs in the San Francisco Giants’ 14-4 romp. In the sixth, with Anthony DeSclafani fuming after a pitch-clock violation, Bailey trotted out to the mound, had a chat with the right-hander and, bang, double-play ball to second baseman Casey Schmitt on the next pitch.
DeSclafani said that the visit, with a 2-0 count to Bryan Reynolds, was to give him a little bit of a breather after what DeSclafani called “two non-competitive pitches,” which led him to wonder whether Reynolds might not swing at the next pitch. “Bailey’s like, ‘They’re fairly aggressive. What do you want to throw?’ and I said, ‘Slider,’ ” DeSclafani said. “He was like, ‘Perfect, slider, groundball to Schmitt, double play.’ And that’s exactly what happened. So that was cool.”
Bailey felt he was to blame for the pitch-clock violation because he was having trouble with his PitchCom. “I just didn’t have my earpiece, so I like told him, ‘Hey, do it again,’ ” Bailey said of the pitch selection. “So he stepped off and then blah-blah-blah, anyhoo, so I apologized and then was like, ‘Hey, what do you want to do here? A slider, he’ll hit it to Schmitty,’ and sure enough he did.”
Giants 14, Pirates 4 Pittsburgh San Francisco ab r h bi ab r h bi Totals 34 4 9 4 Totals 43 14 18 14 Marcano ss 4 0 3 0 Slater lf 6 1 3 4 Reynolds lf 4 0 0 0 Davis 3b 4 2 2 1 McCutchen dh 4 0 0 0 Flores 1b 3 0 0 0 Suwinski cf 4 2 2 2 Wade Jr. ph-1b 2 1 1 0 Joe 1b 4 1 1 0 Haniger rf 5 2 3 2 Bae 2b 4 0 1 0 Schmitt 2b-ss 5 2 3 2 Castro 3b 4 0 0 1 Bailey c 5 2 3 4 Palacios rf 3 1 2 0 Villar dh-2b 5 0 0 0 Hedges c 3 0 0 1 Crawford ss 3 2 3 1 Wisely 2b-p 1 0 0 0 Johnson cf 4 2 0 0 Pittsburgh 001 000 201 — 4 San Francisco 050 100 80x — 14 E_Palacios (1), Castro (9). DP_Pittsburgh 0, San Francisco 2. LOB_Pittsburgh 3, San Francisco 9. 2B_Marcano 2 (8), Palacios (1), Joe (11), Schmitt (6), Bailey (3), Crawford (4), Haniger 2 (6), Slater (2). 3B_Palacios (1). HR_Suwinski 2 (11), Slater (1), Bailey (2). SB_Johnson (1), Davis (1). IP H R ER BB SO Pittsburgh Hill L,4-5 6 9 6 6 1 3 Bolton 1-3 6 8 8 2 0 Zastryzny 2-3 1 0 0 1 0 Owings 1 2 0 0 0 0 San Francisco DeSclafani W,4-4 7 8 3 3 0 2 Ta.Rogers 1 0 0 0 0 1 Wisely 1 1 1 1 0 0 Umpires_Home, Mike Estabrook; First, Andy Fletcher; Second, Erich Bacchus; Third, Laz Diaz. T_2:20. A_39,323 (41,915). See More Collapse
Bailey’s big-league tenure is only nine games, but he’s showing the savvy of a longtime veteran behind the plate, and the Giants are 7-1 in games he has started. “Very young, but seems very mature beyond his years,” Desclafani said. “It seems like he’s been doing it for a while.”
Bailey clocked a two-run homer deep to right in the seventh, and fellow rookie Schmitt had a three-hit game.
“It’s unusual to see two rookies come up and have the type of sustained success that these two players are having,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “So you can kind of dream on the possibilities of these guys playing together for a really long time.”
On the other end of the experience spectrum was shortstop Brandon Crawford, 36, whose playing time has dipped this month following a calf injury and Schmitt’s callup. Crawford is showing signs, despite his erratic playing time, of turning it on offensively. He had three hits and a walk Monday and is 6 for his past 12.
He also turned in an excellent play in a key moment. With one out and a runner at second and two runs already in in the seventh, Crawford went after a roller by Josh Palacios and fired to first to get the left-handed hitting outfielder by a step.
Also from the elder ranks: Rich Hill. The Pirates (and onetime A’s) starter is the oldest player in the league, at 43, and he throws seven pitches, none of them more than 87.7 mph, but he still is averaging a strikeout per inning.
The Giants hit his curveball especially well, with four of their hits in the second coming off the pitch. Mitch Haniger led off the inning with a single, Schmitt doubled, and Bailey rapped his double into the corner in right and went to third on an error. Crawford hit a sweeper (the horizontal equivalent of a curveball) to send Bailey in and with two outs, Austin Slater crushed a first-pitch curveball out to center.
Slater, who came off the injured list Monday after missing 17 games with a hamstring strain, also provided a two out, two-run double off right-hander Cody Bolton (a Tracy High alum) in the Giants’ eight-run seventh and a single off another right-hander, infielder Chris Owings in mop-up duty.
Slater was also involved in one of the stranger moment of the game. LaMonte Wade Jr.’s bouncer hit off third baseman Rodolfo Castro’s chest and he picked the ball up and raced to the bag as Slater was sliding. Castro tumbled over Slater, losing the ball but appearing to knee him in the head, and when Slater got up, looking dazed, third-base coach Mark Hallberg pushed him back onto the bag. That’s a no-no, so Slater was out on the coach’s interference.
Haniger had a three-hit game, with two doubles, and over his past four games, he’s 10 for 18 with eight RBIs. On May 16, he was batting .172, but he’s lifted his average to .255 in under two weeks.
On a day the Giants recorded their biggest run total at home since July 10, 2015 (when they put up 15 against the Phillies), DeSclafani wasn’t the primary story, but he made his 11th consecutive start with at least five innings and no more than two walks. He had one of the more unusual innings you’ll ever see: Tucupita Marcano led off the game with a first-pitch double, Reynolds flied out the next pitch, and Andrew McCutchen flied out on the next — and Marcano, who’d taken off from second, was rounding third and was doubled off by a mile. Three pitches, three outs — with a double thrown in.
“That might be a first for anybody,” DeSclafani said. “It’s kind of weird — I’m walking off the mound, getting into the dugout like, ‘I just threw three pitches.’ ”
By the end of the game, infielder Brett Wisely was pitching. He gave up one run, Jack Suwinski’s second homer of the day. Like the first, off DeSclafani, it splashed into McCovey Cove.
The Giants are 22-13 since April 22.
“We’ve been swinging it really well, getting the big hits we need,” Bailey said. “Let’s keep it rolling.”
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
