Yesterday
Here are the top 5 July 2 moments in San Francisco Giants history.
Walk off 1963 home vs. Braves, maybe the greatest pitched game in the history of the sport, a 16 inning complete game shutout by Juan Marichal (who threw a no hitter 2 and a half weeks prior) and a 15 1/3 inning complete game by Warren Spahn, it ends with an out in the bottom of the 16th when Willie Mays homers into the wind in left off of Spahn to give us a 1-0 win. Spahn was 42 years old. Marichal threw 227 pitches, Spahn 201.
1973 at Atlanta, we're 11 over .500 but 5.5 back, plenty of good seats still available in Atlanta, fewer than 7000 paid on a Monday night, down 5-4 with 2 out in the 8th, Chris Speier hits a 2 run homer off of Joe Hoerner and we're gonna win this one 9-5. Speier's 23, in his third year as our starting shortstop, he'll keep that job until early '77 when we send him to the Expos for Tim Foli.
1988 home vs. Pirates, 5.5 back as we near the halfway point, we got 3 hits in this this game, singles in the second and third and then an Ernie Riles single to lead off the 8th with the score 1-0 Pirates, Butler and Clark then walked, and with the bases loaded and Candy Maldonado at the plate a Barry Jones wild pitch scored two men - and that 2-1 score would hold up. How about that one? The Giants got 3 singles on the day and won the game on a wild pitch that scored two runs.
1989 home vs. Cubs, it's game 81 of the season and we're a game up in the west, Rick Sutcliffe throws a complete game and on the way has a 3-2 8th inning lead with 2 out in the 8th, but Kevin Mitchell hits a 2 run homer and we're gonna win this one 4-3. We move to 15 over .500. 8 WAR for Mitch in '89, the best season for any LF in franchise history not named Barry Bonds.
Walk off 2000 home vs. Dodgers, 6.5 out as we near the halfway mark, 5-5 in the bottom of the 9th, Marvin Benard leads off with a homer off of Mike Fetters to end the game. This was the first season at Pac Bell, and this was the first walk off hit of any type in the new ballpark. It's the only walk off of Benard's career.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
