Yesterday
Here are the top 5 July 8 moments in San Francisco Giants history.
1967 home vs. Dodgers, 6 games back, Juan Marichal throws a complete game, allowing only 5 baerunners, the big moment a 3 run Jim Ray Hart homer off of Don Drysdale to put us up 5-4 in the 5th. We'd win the game 8-4. Marichal's the greatest pitcher in San Francisco history, his 2 best seasons were '65 and '66 - he gave a little ground here, with a 121 ERA+ his worst mark since '61. Marichal's the 4th greatest San Francisco Giant of all time and the 8th best player in franchise history.
1973 at St Louis, game 88 on the season, we're 5.5 out, down 2-1 in the 6th, Willie McCovey drives home 2 with a single off of Rick Wise. We win this one 5-4. McCovey won the Rookie of the Year award in '59 playing only 52 games. He was the unanimous selection. Except for '62-4 when he played a lot of left field in his time share with Cepeda, he manned first base from the time he came up all the way through this year, the end of his first stint in San Francisco.
1974 at Montreal, we're 21 games out, the season is over and we're playing out the string already, Steve Rogers throws a complete game 5 hitter against us, but one of those hits comes in the top of the 10th - it's a run scoring triple to, of all people, Randy Moffitt that breaks a 4-4 tie on our way to a 5-4 win. Moffitt couldnt hit, unsurprisingly, he had a career BA of .140, a career OPS+ of -4, he had 12 hits in a 12 year career...but in '74 he had 5 of those hits in 16 at bats, meaning he hit an improbable .313 this season. This was one of Moffitt's two career extra base hits.
Walk off 1977 home vs. Braves, we're 20 games out of first, 2600 paid on a Friday night at the Stick, Phil Niekro throws a complete game, so he's still on the mound in the bottom of the 9th in a 2-2 game when Jack Clark doubles home Vic Harris with the winning run. Clark broke in two years prior when he was 19 years old, but this is his rookie season, he takes over as the RF (Bobby Murcer had been there the 2 years before, he, of course, took over the position from Bobby Bonds after the two were swapped for each other, and Bonds had been the full time RF since '69, really pushing Jesus Alou out during the '68 season). Clark keeps the job through '84. So, except for the 2 seasons with Murcer, from '69-'84 we have the Giants careers of the 2 greatest right fielders in San Francisco history, Bonds and Clark.
1987 at Pittsburgh, we're 4 games off the lead, a near 4 hour game in front of 10,000 paid at Three Rivers, future Giants Rick Reuschel and Don Robinson both pitch in this one for the Bucs - and maybe you'll have heard of the guy in the big moment, it's 4-4 in the bottom of the 9th, the Pirates have the bases loaded with 1 out against Craig Lefferts - at the plate, 22 year old Barry Bonds - Lefferts gets him to go 3-2-3 to end the inning. We're gonna play 5 more, but we get them in the 14th 8-4. Three solid lefty relief years out of Lefferts for the Giants, this was the first, he came over from the Padres 3 days prior in the big Mitchell/Dravecky trade and this was already his 4th appearance as a Giant. Lefferts will be headed back to San Diego, signing with the Padres after the '89 season.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
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