Yesterday
Here are the top 5 August 6 moments in San Francisco Giants history.
1968 home vs. Phillies, we're 16 out, the season's over, 6200 paid at the Stick on a Tuesday night, Gaylord throws a 3 hit complete game, it's 1-1 in the 8th, Bobby Bonds singles home the go ahead run off of Larry Jackson, we go on to win it 4-1. Through 2016 Perry is the 9th greatest San Francisco Giant of all time. He spent the first 10 years of his career in San Francisco before we shipped a 33 year old Perry to the Indians for Sam McDowell after the '71 season. It was a mistake, the best ERA+ season of his career was '72, the second best was '74. Gaylord moved around after leaving Cleveland, his last stop was Kansas City in '83.
Walk off 1982 home vs. Astros, on the 31st we were 13 back but just a week later it's down to 10 (still too many, of course, but we've won 3 straight coming into this one) 8400 paid on a Friday night at the Stick, we're down 6-5 in the bottom of the 9th, Reggie Smith ties it with a homer off Dave Smith and a few batters later Darrell Evans wins it with a run scoring single off of former Giant Randy Moffitt. Smith earlier homered off of Nolan Ryan and had 4 hits on the night. Career homers 306-7 for Smith, he hits 7 more in his career.
Walk off 1986 home vs. Reds, On July 20 we were tied for first - but now we're five games back, trying to avoid a sweep from the Reds, we go 14 innings on a Wednesday afternoon at the Stick, Vida goes for the good guys - 8 innings, 3 hits, it ends on a two out Mike Aldrete run scoring pinch single off of Carl Willis in the 14th, we take it 2-1. Aldrete was a local, from Carmel, went to Stanford, we drafted him in the 7th round in '83. This is his rookie year, Aldrete backs up at first and the OF and is good, has a 110 OPS+ (the next year's the best of his career, 131 OPS+ in over 400 PA) in '88 he pushes Jeff Leonard out of a job, Aldrete takes over in left, Leonard is sent to Milwaukee during the season, Aldrete's bat doesn't reach those 1987 heights though and he winds up getting dealt after the season to the Expos for Tracy Jones. Aldrete goes on to have a 10 year career in the majors, never again playing a hundred games in a season, never getting another real chance to start. He finishes his career in '96 as a Yankee.
1993 home vs. Astros, look, it's game 110 and we have an 8.5 game lead - what could possibly go wrong? We're 73-36 for the love of Pete. Up 4-3 with 1 out and 2 on in the 9th, Rod Beck strikes out Andujar Cedeno and gets former Giant Kevin Bass to fly to center to end the game. Oakland drafted a 17 year old Beck in the 13th round in '86 out of high school in Van Nuys (the Rangers drafted future Giant Rey Sanchez 8 picks prior). We got him out of their system in '88, he came up in '91 and started closing in '92. Beck smoked guys in these first couple of years, an ERA+ of 190 in '92 and then 181 in '93. Beck's '93 is the 16th best season for a reliever in franchise history (and '92 is 21st).
2002 home vs. Cubs, it's game 112, on July 21 we were a game out of first - but that was two weeks ago and now the deficit is 7. We are still 2.5 games up for the WC however, so it's nearing time to turn our attentions to that race. Starting a homestand against the Cubs on a Tuesday night, we're up 11-10 (having taken the lead in the 8th on a throwing error by the Cubs third baseman - Bill Mueller - that scored 2 runs, a month from now we get Mueller back from Chicago) but they've got the bases loaded with 1 out against Robb Nen - Nen strikes out Alex Gonzalez, then gets Joe Girardi to ground to short to preserve the win. He's only 32 and he's got a 177 ERA+ but this is the end of Nen's career - he has 14 saves left to earn as a big leaguer. Here's a tale of two Cubs against Nen - Nen owned Mark Grace, 3 hits in 24 AB, no extra base hits; on the other hand, here's Sammy Sosa - 8 hits in 19 AB, 3 homers and a 1.450 OPS.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
