What is this all about?
Here are the top 5 moments on April 11 in San Francisco Giants history.
Walk off: 1973 home vs Astros, down 4-3 in the 9th, Willie McCovey hit a 2 run homer off Mike Cosgrove to send everybody home. A 35 year old McCovey was great in '73, OPS+ of 162 in nearly 500 plate appearances. So of course we moved him to San Diego after the season.
1976 home vs. Dodgers, 8th inning, 4-4, 2 on, 2 out, Dave Rader pinch doubles home Speier and Reitz off Mike Marshall and the 6-4 score holds up. Why'd Dave Rader retire when he was 31? He had his best career year with the bat in 1980 with the Red Sox, his 130 OPS+ was 44 points above his career average - and then he never caught another inning.
1989 home vs Dodgers, down 2-1 in the fifth, Will Clark hit a 3 run homer off Tim Leary to put us up 4-2 in a game we'd win 8-3. This was Clark's best season with the bat, a 175 OPS+ on his way to a 2nd place MVP vote.
1999 home vs Padres, 6-6, 8th inning, bases loaded, Jeff Kent scores two with a single off of Donne Wall (after an intentional walk to Bonds) to give us the final 8-6 margin of victory. In a 17 year career Kent's low OPS+ was 89 in 1996; a year later he was a Giant for whom his 6 year average OPS+ was 136.
2014 home vs Rockies, 4th inning, down 3-2 with 2 outs - Madison Bumgarner hits a grand slam off Jorge de la Rosa. We win 6-5. This was Bumgarner's third career homer.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
