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The first round of the San Francisco Giants Series Finals against the Arizona Diamondbacks ended how no one could ever have predicted when the Giants fielded World Series opponents and knocked them down there. A Seven, Nine and 11: With Buster Posey patting Madison Bumgarner’s badonkadonk, as the man who called Posey a “best friend” after the 2014 World Series entered the batter’s box as an opponent.
The final round of the Giants Series Finals against the Diamondbacks ended how anyone would have predicted if they’d watched a Giants baseball stroke in 2021: with LaMonte Wade Jr. hitting a release single.
In between – and before MadBum’s emotional at-bat, which featured a cap tip and a standing ovation – baseball was played. Some good, some bad, all setting the stage for Wade to deliver the knockout blow that gave the Giants their first lead of the night, and continued the story arc of absolute legend.
Things couldn’t have started worse. In fact, if we are very literal with the term “started” then things couldn’t have started better. Here is the first part of the game.
Brandon Crawford won’t win MVP, but he will receive a lot of votes, and he will deserve every one of them.
But after that? Then things couldn’t have started worse.
Scott Kazmir, who was brilliant when he returned to the roster a week ago, followed Crawford’s gem by running Henry Ramos. Then he made Daulton Varsho walk on just four pitches, which I’m told is the league minimum for the unintentional giveaway type.
This led to a single from Carson Kelly, which gave the Diamondbacks the lead, but don’t worry, we’re just getting started here.
Next hitter Christian Walker hit a high, suspended pop up, giving Donovan Solano and Austin Slater plenty of time to recover.
Here’s how their conversation went, at least I imagine:
“You take it.”
“No, you take it.”
“No, you take it.”
“No, seriously man, you take it.”
“Honestly, I really don’t want it, can you take it?” “
“No.”
“K.”
To complicate matters, Slater picked up the abandoned pop-up and, with second base watching him a short distance away with an easy out, tried to get the runner to pass to third.
You can probably guess how successful he was or not.
He charged up the goals and Kazmir managed to shoot a ground ball from Pavin Smith, which turned out to be an out at the start, even though he gave up the run. But between throwing the pitch and hitting it, Kazmir blew himself up with the Men In Black memory trick and forgot three key things:
- To cover the first base.
- That you can just mark a player instead of stepping on the sack, which comes in handy when you’re late to cover first base and find yourself running side-to-side with the batter, while still holding the ball, like two horses in a horse race except one of the horses is holding a baseball.
- How to walk on the bag without spraining your ankle.
One run scored, one out was not saved and Kazmir’s night was over, with an injury conveniently giving Gabe Kapler the go-ahead to shoot a starter who just didn’t have it.
Kervin Castro arrived who, after recording an impressive strikeout, scored a third point, putting Bumgarner’s first at bat in front of Giants fans since signing with Arizona.
Thankfully, Bumgarner wouldn’t hit another of his legendary rand slams, and the Giants would stick to a manageable 3-0 deficit.
They recovered one immediately, when Slater led the bottom of the former with a single and scored on a soaring double from Darin Ruf, who returned to the lineup after a stint on IL.
They got another comeback in the third, when Slater again led the set with a single, again advanced on a Ruf hit (this time to the third on a single), and hit home plate on a fly. Posey’s sacrifice.
And they finally found the equalizer in the fourth, when Brandon Crawford had no choice but to show his ex-teammate his new and improved swing.
But the D-Backs wouldn’t go away easily.
They regained the advantage in the fifth inning on a triple RBI from Ildemaro Vargas, aided by a defensive effort on the right field that perhaps reduced the price Scott Boras asked for when Kris Bryant negotiated by $ 20 million. have started.
But they got it right away when Slater had a – you guessed it, $ 100 for you – starting single, and scored on a double by Posey, his first career hit against Bumgarner.
From there, it was just a matter of seeing if the bullpen could get things right on Wade’s time.
Castro had done his job, but with a wild coat or two, and Johnny Cueto, returning from IL, had limited the damage to a single point in 2.1 innings (although, again, that point should probably be attributed to Bryant’s ERA). Zack Littell struck 4 out of holds in 1.2 innings. Dominic Leone and José Álvarez took care of the seventh.
And then Tyler Rogers was tasked with something he hadn’t done in months: pitch two innings. He was up to the task. Very up to the task.
Everyone did their job to get Wade at bat with the game on the line. And in the ninth, it finally happened.
After a flight from Crawford, Wilmer Flores started the excitement with a strong double that was just a few laps backspin from clearing the fence. Solano was intentionally stepped in to set up a forced play, before a brilliant pinch-to-bat from Curt Casali resulted in an eight-length walk, moving pinch runner Steven Duggar to third.
The rest was history. Wade’s story, which becomes quite predictable.
In the ninth inning and beyond, Wade is now hitting 16-28, with 14 RBIs. He invented the closest position for attacking players.
And as a result, the Giants’ magic number is two as they enter the final series of the year. Win the series, and the NL West is theirs. Lose the series 1-2 and the Los Angeles Dodgers have to sweep their series just to force a tiebreaker game.
It’s a pretty good place to be.
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