It was a baseball moment unlike any we've seen this year, though God willing there will be many more in our near future.
35,136 at Oracle Park were vibrating with an almost palpable tension as Jarlin Garcia faced Cody Bellinger yesterday in the top of the sixth, with the bases loaded and two men out, and the Giants holding a 4-0 lead over the Dodgers like Luke Skywalker bravely holding Darth Vader at bay in a lightsaber duel. The Giants' main nemesis, Max Muncy, had singled to extend the inning, and the Giants' other main nemesis, Justin Turner, had just worked Johnny Cueto for a walk, assisted by umpire Nestor Ceja's traveling strike zone. That brought Gabe Kapler to the mound, Garcia into the game, and a visibly frustrated Cueto off to the dugout after five-plus shutout innings, a strong and timely performance yielding to lefty-lefty percentages and, maybe, a changed demeanor on the mound. So here's Bellinger, whose wild throw cost his team the game Tuesday night. Bellinger, hampered by injuries, suffering through a miserable season with the bat, aching to set things right with the big hit that would put his team back in the game with a chance to take two of three in the Giants' home park, and to pull within one game of the lead in a division the defending champions must believe, have to believe, is rightly theirs.
Garcia has knocked around the league for a few years; he joined the Giants last season as one of a stable of left-handed relievers-- Kap just loves 'em-- and this year he has turned a corner, with a 0.84 WHIP and, for the first time in his career, more strikeouts than innings pitched. And he's also become that rare commodity: a reliever who thrives on coming in cold with men on base and getting out of it unscathed. Jeremy Affeldt was like that, so is the injury-plagued Reyes Moronta, and now, maybe, so is Jarlin Garcia. Three runners on base, Cueto's shutout, the inconsistent umpire, the crowd-- none of it mattered. Only Bellinger mattered. Two pitches-- two strikes, called. One pitch-- strike three, swinging, and sure, it was only the sixth, but everyone in the park and listening on the radio knew a corner had been turned. "Yuuuuuuuuuuuge!" was the immediate message that blasted out into the text universe.
You think Dave Roberts wasn't handling this like a playoff game? Despite losing their top two starters, and despite injuries to several key players, LA has hung in there stubbornly, winning 60% of their games in a madly competitive race, holding the preseason-favorite Padres at bay, and constantly threatening the upstart Giants. Wednesday's 8-0 win looked almost insultingly routine, coming on the heels of the desperate one-run Giants win the night before, and games like that can infer a frightening disparity between the Dodgers' capabilities and the Giants'. But then the Giants keep turning the tables as they did yesterday, and the two teams had played each other 15 times already, LA losing seven, and two-thirds of the season was gone, and there are only so many opportunities. Trailing 4-0 in the fifth, Roberts sensed one coming, and pushed in all his chips.
Darin Ruf had ripped a laser shot all the way out to Triples Alley, and with one out he stood on third. Former Giant Phil Bickford, in relief of starter David Price, recovered to struck out Donovan Solano. But with two out and two left-handed bats coming up, Roberts gambled big-time. He had Bickford walk them both-- first Brandon Crawford, whose 2 RBI had set the tone early, and then LaMonte Wade. In the fifth inning, mind you. Bickford, who throws hard but can be wild, now had to come in to Curt Casali. Roberts knows very well how many times Casali has delivered in similar situations this year, and he knew he needed a ball hit right at somebody. Bickford, who seems to be resurrecting his career nicely in LA, did better than that. He struck out the veteran catcher on a nasty 1-2 pitch and the big inning was averted.
But Kapler and Garcia countered quite nicely an inning later, and after that it was nine up, nine down, against Dominic Leone, Tyler Rogers, and Jake McGee. The 5-0 lead in the ninth ensured McGee wouldn't earn a save, but he got Muncy, Turner, and Bellinger 1-2-3 just the same, to end it quietly and emphatically. These two teams won't see each other until Labor Day Weekend at the O, and who knows what things will look like then?
Speaking of cashing in chips, the Dodgers blew up the table limit last night as they picked up Max Scherzer and Trea Turner from the Washington Nationals. Scherzer, of course, is as good as any starting pitcher in baseball, and as a "rental" he is there specifically to put LA over the top this year. Meanwhile Turner is one of the game's rising stars, and so in loading up for the short term, LA also has bolstered their long-term strength. They are tough to beat, all right, and they're gonna be tough to beat, and there's still 60 games left.
And tonight the Houston Astros, who can lay claim to being the best team in baseball if anyone can, arrive in San Francisco to face the Giants. No, it sure doesn't get any easier-- but right now it doesn't get any better than this.
