Pederson HR, walk-off BB push Giants to 9th straight W
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San Diego’s bullpen was in rough shape coming into Oracle Park, and the San Francisco Giants followed their recent script of coming back in the late innings to pocket a win in the series opener.
Tuesday, the Giants again fell behind in the middle innings, and the now better-rested Padres bullpen bent, surrendering Joc Pederson’s game-tying homer in the eighth. In the ninth, San Francisco kept up the pressure, putting two on with one out, and All-Star Josh Hader, unavailable the night before, broke. He walked Casey Schmitt — the impatient hitter’s second walk in as many nights — and then walked Pederson, a walk-off walk for a 4-3 victory, San Francisco’s ninth in a row.
At 41-32, the Giants are just 2½ games behind division-leading Arizona.
“It’s been fun to be part of it,” said Pederson, while wearing a bejeweled necklace reminiscent of the stand of pearls he featured during the Braves' World Series run two years ago. “It feels like we’ve got 26 guys pulling on the same string and it’s somebody new every night. We’ve dealt with some some injuries and we’ve still been able to overcome them and have someone step up, so it’s really big.”
Giants 4, Padres 3 San Diego San Francisco ab r h bi ab r h bi Totals 37 3 10 3 Totals 32 4 8 3 Tatis Jr. rf 5 2 3 1 Pederson dh 4 1 1 2 Soto lf 4 0 2 1 Estrada 2b 4 1 1 0 Machado 3b 5 0 1 1 Davis 3b 4 0 1 0 Bogaerts ss 5 0 1 0 Conforto lf 2 0 0 0 Cronenworth 1b 3 0 0 0 Slater ph-lf 1 0 0 0 Odor dh 4 0 0 0 Yastrzemski rf 3 0 1 0 Kim 2b 4 0 1 0 Matos cf 3 2 1 0 Grisham cf 4 1 2 0 Bailey c 4 0 1 0 Nola c 2 0 0 0 Crawford ss 3 0 1 1 Carpenter ph 1 0 0 0 Schmitt ph 0 0 0 0 Sánchez c 0 0 0 0 Villar 1b 4 0 1 0 San Diego 002 010 000 — 3 San Francisco 000 100 111 — 4 E_Crawford (8). DP_San Diego 2, San Francisco 0. LOB_San Diego 10, San Francisco 7. 2B_Soto (18), Villar (6), Estrada (17). HR_Tatis Jr. (15), Pederson (8). S_Nola (4). IP H R ER BB SO San Diego Lugo 5 3 1 1 1 5 Wilson H,16 1 0 0 0 0 0 Hill H,9 2-3 3 1 1 1 0 Martinez L,3-3 BS,1-4 1 2-3 2 2 2 1 0 Hader 1-3 0 0 0 2 1 San Francisco DeSclafani 5 8 3 3 1 6 Beck 3 1 0 0 1 2 Ty.Rogers W,2-4 1 1 0 0 0 1 Umpires_Home, Manny Gonzalez; First, Quinn Wolcott; Second, Junior Valentine; Third, Jose Navas. T_2:40. A_32,060 (41,915). See More Collapse
Pederson, who was batting leadoff Tuesday with LaMonte Wade Jr. out with side tightness, doesn’t always get a chance to face tough lefties late in games, and he had only one at-bat, and a hit, against Hader. He fouled off one two-strike pitch. a sinker that caught the outside corner, before taking the seventh and final pitch, a sinker well out of the zone.
Pederson’s homer, which bounced into McCovey Cove, was his second in three career at-bats against Nick Martinez.
When Hader entered, manager Gabe Kapler had a tough call, pinch hitting for Brandon Crawford against the lefty, a pitcher Crawford has homered against. Plus, Crawford had two of the team’s eight hits.
“That was particularly challenging, particularly uncomfortable, because I believe in Craw in the biggest way,” Kapler said. “We’ve obviously seen him come through in the clutch so many times and I’m confident that he can get the job done in that situation. At the same time, Hader is just especially tough on everybody but in particular on lefties. I think it’s an easier at-bat for a right-handed hitter, and I went out and watched Casey’s early batting practice today and thought he was really controlled and he’s been working on some things. I trust that that work is going to pay off.
“It was really an opportunity for Casey to build confidence and I think that’s really important for a young player right now.”
Schmitt got a little help; one of the balls in his third career walk came via a pitch-clock violation. Schmitt, being Schmitt, still swung at the pitch.
“That was kind of a weird thing,” Schmitt said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever had that, where’s was the pitch clock and I was able to still swing at it.”
“Casey had a hell of an at-bat, really,” Kapler said. “The swings he took were as good as the takes. So it wasn’t a passiveness up there, it was a controlled aggressiveness.”
Schmitt’s teammates do like to give him some grief about his low walk total, though. Mike Yastrzemski remarked Monday how “incredible” Schmitt’s walk was; Tuesday Yastrzemski greeted Schmitt with, “Oh my God, you walked again.”
Luis Matos walked to start the threat, and Patrick Bailey delivered the inning’s only hit. Like the night before: three rookies factor big in the late going.
“I really do think this is a team thing that’s happening right now,” Kapler said. “There’s a lot of trust from one player to the next and guys are celebrating, even comfortable, taking walks. And obviously the Joc walk was big for us tonight, as was Casey’s, as well as Luis'.
“Those are two young players in the biggest moments that they’ve been a part of, or at least right up there with the biggest moments that they’ve been a part of, and they were calm, cool and collected.”
San Francisco’s bullpen was, as usual, nails, providing four scoreless innings, three from Tristan Beck, one from Tyler Rogers. Beck: another of the team’s rookies.
“We’ve talked a lot about Casey, Casey’s got a lot of shine,” Kapler said. “So does Pat, for really good reason. Luis is now here and especially shiny. He’s fun to talk about, he’s doing some cool things on the baseball field.
“Tristan has been every bit as good as those guys and hasn’t gotten nearly the amount of attention.”
The walkoff win was the Giants' third of the season, and they’ve recorded two such wins back-to-back for the first time since July 18-19, 2019, against the Mets. Pederson’s walk was San Francisco’s first walk-off walk since Buster Posey did it May 11, 2016, against Toronto.
Perhaps San Francisco might want to start pressing the gas pedal a little earlier, though. Over the past five games, the team hasn’t scored before the fourth, and that was Tuesday night. In the previous four games, the Giants’ first run came in the seventh, and then three games in a row, the fifth. The formula is working though: Entering the day, San Francisco had scored at least seven runs in six consecutive games. In five of the nine wins, the Giants trailed in the seventh inning or later.
The Giants have scored 137 runs in the seventh inning or later this year, the most in the majors.
Double plays hurt San Francisco’s output Tuesday. In the fourth, Thairo Estrada whacked a leadoff double off Seth Lugo — terrific all night — and J.D. Davis’ infield single put Estrada at third. Michael Conforto hit into a double play, which scored the run.
In the seventh, the Giants loaded the bases with no outs off lefty Tim Hill, and Bailey bounced into a 5-2 double play on the first pitch he got, erasing the two lead runners. Crawford’s second hit of the game sent in one run, but, again, the double play helped limit the damage. With two men on, David Villar flew out.
Starter Anthony DeSclafani struck out four of the first six hitters, but in the third, Austin Nola and Fernando Tatis Jr. singled and Juan Soto doubled in Nola, and Manny Machado’s groundout scored Tatis. Tatis homered to center leading off the fifth and finished with a three-hit night.
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
