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SAN FRANCISCO — With each passing day, the Giants become more convinced they have what it takes to continue a special July run and complete a stunning march to the postseason.
When Madison Bumgarner takes the mound and pitches like he has of late, good luck convincing them otherwise.
The Chicago Cubs tried to spoil the Giants’ hopes with an eighth-inning rally, but San Francisco is thriving on drama these days. It took until the bottom of the 13th inning, but the Giants secured their 17th win in their last 20 games on a Pablo Sandoval opposite field home run to clinch a 5-4 victory.
“I feel like everybody knew we were going to win, just when is it going to happen,” Bumgarner said. “Then we did.”
Sandoval was 0-for-5 and had hit into two double plays before he stepped in to face Cubs reliever Brad Brach, but early struggles don’t faze veteran players.
In basketball, shooters keep shooting. In baseball, hitters keep swinging.
“I was thinking to myself, you’re a better hitter than that,” Sandoval said. “You have to focus, don’t lose the aggressiveness you’ve got when you play and I got a good pitch to hit.”
This was the fifth career walk-off hit for @KFP48.
@BankofAmerica | #SFGiants pic.twitter.com/Z1jLqaPu4t— SFGiants (@SFGiants) July 24, 2019
Sandoval’s solo shot barely snuck over the left field wall, but the Giants’ fourth extra-inning walk-off in six days was first made possible due to rookie Sam Coonrod’s electric 13th inning.
In his fifth career appearance, Coonrod struck out Cubs sluggers Javy Báez and Kris Bryant, reached 99 miles per hour on the radar gun and also induced a groundout from Anthony Rizzo to pick up his first career victory.
“I really try not to even worry about that,” said Coonrod of facing the Cubs’ best hitters. “You have Buster Posey behind the plate so you just kind of let him call the game and it works out.”
The Giants’ fifth win of the homestand created even more stress on an overwhelmed bullpen, but the unit rose to the occasion under difficult circumstances on Tuesday. After the Cubs tied the game with a rally against Reyes Moronta and Tony Watson in the eighth, Will Smith, Mark Melancon and Coonrod combined for five innings of one-hit ball.
“The bullpen arms have got to be the best in baseball,” left fielder Alex Dickerson said. “From what I’ve seen here over the past five weeks or so, one guy is lights out after another. That’s what’s keeping us in these really close games.”
Center fielder Kevin Pillar came within centimeters of ending the game in the bottom of the 10th, but his leadoff double off the top of the left field wall wasn’t hit deep enough. With the bases loaded, Sandoval was the player who grounded out to end the inning, but his fourth career walk-off home run was the redemption the Giants needed to take sole possession of second place in the National League West.
“It reminds me of the 2014 team,” Sandoval said. “The ride we have right now, it’s unbelievable. We never give up. We fight every inning.”
The night ended with a sterling performance from the best bullpen in the National League, but it began with an ace who sets the tone for a Giants team that’s won 17 of 20 for the first time since July 25-August 16, 2001.
In the two-decade history of the Giants’ waterfront ballpark, only a select group of celebrated pitchers have dominated quite like Bumgarner.
Matt Cain has thrown more innings in the stadium and Tim Lincecum has racked up a few more wins and a couple additional strikeouts, but Bumgarner’s 2.74 home ERA entering Tuesday’s outing at Oracle Park is the best of any pitcher who has held a regular rotation spot for the Giants.
If Tuesday’s start against the Cubs potentially represented the end of a remarkable era, Bumgarner did everything in his power to make sure first-year president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi will keep the team together at the trade deadline.
“It’s probably the best stretch I’ve been a part of,” Bumgarner said. “I didn’t go back and look, but just going off my memory, it’s got to be up there.”
The left-hander tossed seven innings of three-run ball against the Cubs, stranding the tying runner in scoring position in his final inning before walking off to a standing ovation from the 39,747 fans in attendance, the largest crowd at Oracle Park since Opening Day.
“When you’re pitching you’ve got to be locked into the moment, but like I’ve said a million times, this is a special place to me and it always will be.”
After Bumgarner fell behind early, the Giants tied the game at 2-2 on Dickerson’s sixth home run of the season, a solo shot out to left field in the fourth inning off Cubs starter Yu Darvish. Pillar came up later in the frame and gave Bumgarner a 4-2 lead with a two-run double in the fourth and the left-hander preserved the Giants’ advantage for the rest of his outing.
Bumgarner wasn’t dominant, but he extended his best stretch of the starts against a first-place club and has now posted an ERA of 2.00 in his last six outings.
Scouts from several contending clubs were in the house to evaluate Bumgarner’s ability to help their teams, but the left-hander is hopeful the Giants will do enough from now through the July 31 trade deadline to keep him with the only franchise he’s ever known.
“I think this is a dangerous team, it really is,” Bumgarner said.
