June 26 - Top 5 Moments in San Francisco Giants History

What is this all about?

Yesterday

Here are the top 5 June 26 moments in San Francisco Giants history.

1976 at Los Angeles, we're 15.5 back, so the season is over, 2-2 in the 9th inning, Gary Matthews leads off with a homer off of Doug Rau, we're gonna win this one 4-2.  It's Matthews' best year with the bat as a Giant and, because we can't have nice things, his last year as a Giant.  He signs as a free agent with the Braves.  Matthews was our LF from '73-'76, the starter before him - Ken Henderson, the starter after, Darrell Evans.

Walk off 1979 home vs. Braves, 90 games left in the season, 8.5 off the lead, Darrell Evans leads off the bottom of the 9th with a homer off Gene Garber to win the game 6-5. It's year 4 of 8 for Evans in San Francisco after coming over from the Braves, his second year as the starting third baseman.  It's Evans's 4th career walk off but the only one he'd ever hit as a Giant.

1991 at Los Angeles, we're 30-41 but have won 6 straight including a walk off against the Cubs 3 days prior, we're trying for a quick 2 game sweep in Dodger Stadium, it's 2-2 with 2 out in the 11th, Kevin Mitchell (the opposite of Evans, Mitch was our third baseman, became our left fielder) hits what turns out to be the game winning homer off of Tim Crews. Mitch is nearing the end of his 5 year Giants run, in the offseason we send him to Seattle in a 5 player deal, the biggest of which headed back our way is Billy Swift.

2002 home vs. Padres, 9 games over .500 and 4.5 games back, we're down 5-4 in the 9th with 2 out and 2 strikes when Shawon Dunston singles home Marvin Benard off of Trevor Hoffman.  We'd go on to win the game in 12.  It's Dunston's last year in the bigs, he has fewer than 40 regular season games left in his 18 year career.

Walk off 2016 home vs. Phillies - we're 20 over .500 with a 7 game lead, it's 7-7 in the bottom of the 9th, Conor Gillaspie doubles home the winning run off of Severino Gonzalez and we win it 8-7.  We drafted Gillaspie 37th overall in '08 (the same year we took Posey 5th) he got in 8 games before the end of the year as a 20 year old, but only played in another 21 big league games until leaving the organization after 2012 (we sent him to the White Sox for a non prospect).  He came back in 2016 and had his best Giants season, a 100 OPS+ and 1 WAR.

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!