The Giants (49-49) won an extra innings nail biter for the second night in a row Friday at Oracle Park, as rookie Tyler Beede (ND, 3-3, 4.70) and Mets star pitcher Jacob deGrom (ND, 5-7, 3.02 ERA) both put on dazzling shutout performances.
Neither factored into San Francisco’s 1-0 victory over New York (44-53), though, which teetered on a war of attrition between two beleaguered bullpens still suffering a hangover from the 16-inning marathon of the night before.
A rally fueled by an Alex Dickerson walk and a fly ball to left from Pablo Sandoval that fell out of Dominic Smith‘s glove finally broke the nil-nil tie for the Giants with their second walkoff in as many days, putting them at .500 for the first time all season and stretching their winning streak to seven.
Beede said hitting .500 was a milestone for the team:
“We’re excited to be at .500, but we got we got bigger goals and want to just continue to build on what we’re doing.”
San Francisco is now 8-2 in extra innings games in 2019 and Giants manager Bruce Bochy said it comes naturally to his club:
“The players here are used to playing in tight ball games, that’s our deal. So they’re comfortable, it’s about playing under pressure and they’re used to it. It’s in their DNA to find a way to win these type games.”
Bochy chalked this one up as one of those, ‘You take ’em where you can get ’em’ kind of wins, but he gave a lot of credit to both Beede and the bullpen. He said:
“We got a break, [but] you take it. You saw some great pitching tonight. That’s what the story of that game was, just terrific pitching on both sides. deGrom is one of the best, you know you have your hands full [with him] but our guy really gave us what we needed.”
Their guy, Beede, looked like a brand new man. The 26-year-old spent eight innings hitting his spots with all his pitches in the longest outing of his career.
He said watching Madison Bumgarner‘s start against the Mets Thursday offered him useful insight on how to go about facing New York’s lineup. Beede said:
“They’re obviously an aggressive team and just watching the way Bum was attacking them yesterday and knowing that a lot of the guys in that lineup are swinging, swinging early and swinging often, [I knew] going in if I make quality pitches and attack the zone there could be some quick innings. I certainly didn’t put pressure on myself to go out and throw eight or nine innings but I wanted to go deep into the ballgame, knowing what we did last night.”
While deGrom notched his sixth double-digit strikeout game of 2019 sending 10 Giants packing, Beede mastered his pitch count, relying on his perfectly qualified defense to do their job. The result was Beede was able to eat at least one more inning than deGrom, which was a big deal one day out from a 16-inning marathon.
While deGrom ended his night after seven innings and 108 pitches, Beede came out an inning later at 88 pitches largely because the Giants needed offense and the pitcher’s spot was up to lead off the bottom half.
Bochy said that had Beede’s spot not been up the next inning, he definitely would have sent him back out for the ninth. He said:
“His pitch count was great. He was on tonight with all his pitches… It was fun to watch. It’s fun to watch his progress, his development and how his confidence has grown.”
San Francisco’s bullpen did what San Francisco’s bullpen has been doing all season and kept them in the game as long as it took Friday. Brandon Crawford almost sent everyone to the showers happy with a deep fly ball to center that missed going out by mere feet, but it wasn’t to be.
Jacob Rhame (L, 0-1, 7.20 ERA) called up by New York Friday to bolster the tired Mets pen, finally gave up the ghost in his second inning of work, the tenth. But it would fall to two of the team’s most clutch hitters, Dickerson and Sandoval, to finish this one off.
Rhame allowed a walk to ‘Dick’ who pinch hit to lead off, and with two outs, Sandoval mustered a high fly out to left. Initially it looked like that ball had 11th inning written all over it. But with an exit velocity over 20-mph slower than Crawford’s, it was the one that got the job done when it popped out of Smith’s glove.
Of the play Dickerson said:
“I was going hard right out the gate and then right as I was crossing second I took a peek at the left fielder and he looked tentative. I know I’ve been in that situation before, once you’re tentative on those balls anything can happen especially here, the winds kind of tricky, too. So I was just going as hard as I could and once it dropped I was going to do everything I could to hit home.”
You could say Smith’s concentration broke, or maybe you could say the ball just keeps bouncing the Giants way. But drop it did, and San Francisco continues to steamroll every team they meet.
The speedy Dickerson, who has been a major catalyst for this team, flew around the bases to scratch the winning run across.
Sam Dyson (W, 4-1, 2.68 ERA) pitched the tenth, which was the seventh extra inning required of the Giants bullpen in under 24 hours, and he took home the win for his three-up-three-down frame.
Beede said this hot streak has been exciting and the hometown crowd has added fuel to the fire:
“You can sense it in the crowd, we show up and it’s been jam-packed. You feel the energy from the crowd, you feel the energy from the team. It’s certainly exciting to show up to the ballpark.”
Walter Lockett (0-1, 11.74 ERA) takes the mound for New York Saturday afternoon in game three of four between the Giants and Mets. He will face San Francisco righty Jeff Samardzija (5-6, 4.87 ERA. First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 p.m.
Julie Parker is SFBay’s San Francisco Giants beat writer. Follow @SFBay and @InsideThePark3r on Twitter and at SFBay.ca for full coverage of Giants baseball.
Last modified July 20, 2019 12:23 am
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