What is this all about?
Here are the top five April 26 moments in San Francisco Giants history.
Walk off 1972 home vs Phillies, Philly scored 2 in the top of the 10th to go up 6-4, a Speier triple tied it at 6, and then Bobby Bonds hit a 2 out, 2 run homer off Bucky Brandon to win the game. Bonds had only a 116 OPS+ in '72, the worst offensive season of his career to that date - and he wouldn't have another one as bad for 8 years.
Walk off 1985 home vs Reds, here's a great one, the Giants came into the bottom of the 9th down 6-1. The Reds had a 99% win probability. Here's what happened:
Chili led off with a double. Leonard singled to score him 6-2.
Scot Thompson singled. The Reds brought in Ted Power. Brenly moved the runners over.
Brad Wellman singled to score both runners. 6-4.
Joel Youngblood grounded out. David Green walked.
And then Dan Gladden hit a 2 out, 3 run walk off home run for as improbable a comeback as you'll ever see. 7-6. In only 86 games, Gladden finished fourth in the Rookie of the Year balloting in '84 with a blistering 145 OPS+; he came back down to earth and was sent to Minnesota just before the '87 season with Bryan Hickerson the most noteable future Giant to return.
Walk off 1992 home vs Dodgers, everyone loves a Dodgers walk off, 4-4 in the 11th inning (a Strawberry 3 run homer in the 8th tied it for LA) 2 on, 2 out, Kevin Bass singles to center off Steve Wilson, scoring Willie McGee, and we take the ballgame. Bass didn't last the season, we dumped off his deal to the Mets for the stretch.
Walk off 1998 home vs Brewers big Giants comeback here, the Brewers scored a half dozen off Mark Gardner in the third, but with help of a Bonds grand slam we had cut the deficit to 7-6 coming into the 9th, Stan Javier tied it with a homer, and here, with 2 out, Charlie Hayes homers to right-center off Doug Jones to win the game. We drafted Hayes 15 years prior, in '83; he had a cup of coffee and then got moved to the Phillies in '89 as part of the deal that brought us Steve Bedrosian. He made his way back in '98 (headed out was a prospect named Chris Singleton, who finished 6th for Rookie of the Year with the White Sox in '99) this was his third Giants home run.
2012 at Cincinnati Giants down 5-3 in the 8th - Angel Pagan hits a 3 run homer off Sean Marshall, we'll win the game by that 6-5 score. Pagan was a 5 win player in his first season in San Francisco, his best year as a Giant.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
Walk off 2017 home vs Dodgers, I wasn't intending on editing in this year's games into the document, but when the season's been as much of a struggle as has been 2017, you gotta make your own fun - down 3-2 in the 8th in what to that date was a slog of a season, former Giant postseason hero Michael Morse, in his first big league plate appearance in over a year, hits a pinch hit homer off of Pedro Baez to tie the score. The Giants win it in the bottom of the 9th on a Pence sac fly 4-3. It was Morse's first homer since September of 2015.
See you today. Go Giants!
