What is this all about?
Here are the top 5 April 21 moments in San Francisco Giants history.
1974 at Dodgers 8th inning, down 4-1 - bases loaded, Mike Phillips doubles everyone home against Mike Marshall to tie the score. Phillips just couldn't hit at all; had an OPS+ of 45 in 301 plate appearances in '74. No, you should not give someone with an OPS+ of 45 301 plate appearances, no, no you should not.
1974 at Dodgers same game, same inning, 4-4, Phillips got taken down for a pinch runner, and he would score the go ahead run on a Steve Ontiveros single. We'd win 6-4. Ontiveros was 22 years old in '74 and got 403 big league plate appearances as the Giants starting third baseman. By the time he was 29 he was out of the league.
1975 at Cincinnati, 3-3 in the 10th, Chris Speier singled home Gary Matthews off of Pedro Borbon to put the Giants up 4-3, the final margin of victory. Speier was a good Giant, particularly valuable with the glove, an All Star in '72-4 (his '72 season is the greatest year for any Giant shortstop ever) he got dealt away (for Tim Foli) in '77, but (like Rich Aurilia would later do) came back to finish up his career (and played well in a backup role) from '87-9.
Walk off 1991 home vs Astros, scoreless, bottom of the 9th, the Giants had only 4 hits (matched by the Astros) when Steve Decker came to the plate against Curt Schilling - and hit a walk off homer to beat him. Giants pitchers ended this game with a 23 inning scoreless streak. Decker never really hit big league pitching, he had a career OPS+ of 68, but we've never been able to get enough of him, he did two stints with the club and upon his retirement has been a part of the organization since 2001. Schilling was 24 in '91, this was his only year with the Astros, it is unclear how he felt about Muslims at the time. Schilling appears to have been, like many of his race and gender, radicalized as he's aged. Sad!
2009 home vs Padres, 4th inning, down 2-1, Edgar Renteria hits a 1 out grand slam off of future Giant Jake Peavy. Giants go on to win 8-3. It was Renteria's first Giants homer and the first grand slam Peavy had ever allowed. Renteria was a disasterous free agent signing for the Giants, right up until he was MVP of the 2010 World Series.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
