August 18 - Top 5 Moments in San Francisco Giants History

Yesterday.

What is this all about?

Here are the top 5 August 18 moments in San Francisco Giants history.

Walk off 1961 home vs. Dodgers, we're 8 out, so it's not white flag time yet at game 115 but you can see it from here. 1-1 in the bottom of the 10th, Orlando Cepeda leads off with a home run off of Larry Sherry to win the game. It's Cepeda's 109th career homer, his 3rd career walk off. He hits his 4th in a month, his 5th in four years, and his sixth as a member of the Red Sox in '73 against Sparky Lyle.

1978 at Philadelphia, 3 months ago we moved into first place, and either led outright or shared the lead every day - until a week ago, we're now a game back, starting a series at the Vet. 4-4 in the 9th, 2 out - Mike Ivie pinch hits a 2 run homer off of Tug McGraw, we're gonna win it 6-5 to move 20 games over first place. Ivie hit 11 homers in '78, his first Giants season, three weeks before he walked off the Cardinals with a homer off Bob Forsch.  This one was number 9 on the year.

Walk off 1985 home vs. Dodgers, the last Giants team to be as bad as the 2017 team?  The '85 Giants are 44-71, 24.5 games out of first place, but in front of nearly 30,000 on a Sunday afternoon at the Stick, they get one from LA.  1-1 with 2 out in the 10th, Dan Gladden singles home the winning run off of Tom Niedenfuer. Gladden had a 145 OPS+ as a rookie in '84 (he only played in 86 games, finished 4th in Rookie of the Year, Gooden won) and never again broke 105.

2007 at Florida, we're 17.5 out, up 4-3 in the 9th in Miami, one out and the tying run at third - Brad Hennessey gets Alfredo Amezaga to line into a 4-5 game ending double play.  Hennessey was a Purebread, played his whole career with the Giants, 5 years, 148 games, all with the good guys. We picked him 21st overall in '01 from Youngstown St. (Joe Mauer went first, Mark Teixeira 5th, David Wright 38th, 8 picks after our Hennessey selection we took Noah Lowry). Hennessey came up in '04, moved to the pen in '06, this was his best year, he closed for awhile and had a 132 ERA+.  He was pretty terrible in '08 and signed with the Orioles after the season.  He never made the club and kicked around a few organizations for the next few years, but couldn't get back to the big leagues.

2009 at Cincinnati, 5.5 games out of first in the West, only a game out of the Wild Card, we are right in it coming into game 119, 5-5 in the 10th, Ryan Garko (who had 4 RBI on the night) drove in two with a double off of Francisco Cordero.  We win this 8-5.  We got Garko in a deadline deal from Cleveland, he was a Giant for 40 games and got a lot of first base at bats down the stretch.  He didn't hit, had a 68 OPS+ and only played another 15 games in his career (in Texas next year, where he hit even more poorly).  4 days from now he'll hit 2 homers in a game we'll lose at Coors, his only 2 Giants home runs.

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!