What is this all about?
Here are the top 5 June 20 moments in San Francisco Giants history.
Walk off 1965 home vs. Pittsburgh, first game of a doubleheader and it goes 4 hours ending when Jim Ray Hart leads off the 15th with a homer off Al McBean. It's the 25th walk off home in San Francisco history. Signed as an 18 year old in 1960, up as a 21 in 1963, in his second year as the starting third baseman right here in '65, moved to the bench in '69 and finally released very early in the '73 season (picked up by the Yankees) - thats Jim Ray Hart's Giants career. This was Hart's 39th homer and second career walk off.
1983 at Cubs, this is Game 91, we're a dozen games out, down 2-1 in the 7th, Bob Brenly hits a 2 run homer off Steve Trout, This is Brenly's first season as our starting catcher, he backed up the prior two seasons after coming up through the system for 5 years - he'll keep the job until '88, when he split time with Bob Melvin, he left as a free agent after the season, signing with the Jays, but they released him at midseason and he came back for a dozen games in late '89.
1983 at Cubs, same game, with 2 out in the 10th Jack Clark homered off Lee Smith to give us a 4-3 lead and that held up. Drafted at 17, up at 19, Clark became the Giants starting RF when he was 21 in 1977 and held that job until getting dealt to the Cardinals in 1985. He finished his career in Boston in '92.
1993 at Houston, 18 over .500 with a 7.5 game lead, down 5-4 with 2 out in the 7th, Will Clark hit a 2 run homer off Brian Williams, we'd win the game 8-5. Clark never had a season in his 15 year career where he hit below a 100 OPS+, this was his worst season with the bat in San Francisco, he had a 118 OPS+. Clark was the 2nd overall pick in '85 (Barry Larkin was 4th, Barry Bonds was 6th, Rafael Palmeiro was 22nd) became our starting first baseman in '86 and held the job until he left for the Rangers after this season. He finished his career in St Louis in 2000. Adalberto Mejia, who the Giants in 2016 traded for Eduardo Nunez, was born on this day.
Walk off 1999 home vs. Cubs, we're 2.5 out, looking for a 4 game sweep over the Cubs, 6-6 in the bottom of the 9th, 2 out, Wilson Delgado singles home the winning run on a 2 strike pitch against Rick Aguilera, Delgado played in 59 games in 4 utility seasons as a Giant (he came over from the Mariners wth Shawn Estes for Salomon Torres) we sent him to the Yankees after this season and played until 2004 when he finished with the Mets.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
Edit - at Atlanta, 20 games out of first, 20 games under .500, it's an historically underperforming Giants season, down 2-0 in the 8th, Austin Slater hits a 3 run homer off Julio Teheran on our way to a 6-3 win. Hard to find bright spots in what could turn out to be a hundred loss season, but the first 15 games of Austin Slater's big league career were one. After this game he was hitting .340 with a 140 OPS+. This was Slater's second career homer.
See you today. Go Giants!
