Yesterday
Here are the top 5 August 13 moments in San Francisco Giants history.
1968 at Pittsburgh, we've won 3 straight but are 15.5 out and starting a 13 game road trip. Juan Marichal wins his 21st game, throwing a complete game 2 hitter, all of our runs came with one swing of the bat, a 3 run Willie Mays homer off Bob Veale with 2 outs in the 8th that broke a scoreless tie. 325 innings pitched for Marichal in '68, he had one more elite year in '69 and then started his decline. With 60 WAR he's pretty easily the greatest San Francisco pitcher of all time, the conversation starts at who is second best.
1978 at Los Angeles, this is such a great season, the Giants are battling the Dodgers and Reds all year, after a doubleheader sweep of the Cards on May 14 we moved into the lead, for 3 months, all the way until August 11, we were no worse than tied for first, but two days ago we fell a game out (and in third place) but we beat the Dodgers yesterday and are now tied for the lead. This is our 8th game against the Dodgers in the last 10 days, we're trying to split them 4-4. Sunday afternoon at a sold out Chavez Ravine, first place Dodgers - first place Giants in the middle of August and there's no wild card to save you. This is the best baseball gets. We go nearly 4 hours. We scored 2 in the top of the 10th - they came back with 2 in the bottom. 6-6 in the 11th, Larry Herndon leads off with a double off of Charlie Hough, Jack Clark drives him home to give us the 7-6 lead, in the bottom of the 11th John Curtis leaves with 2 on and one out, Ed Halicki, making his first relief appearance in 2 seasons, comes in and gets Garvey and Dusty to end the game. This is the 118th game of the season and we leave Dodger Stadium with a 1 game lead - we lose our next game in Montreal to drop back to a tie and then never spend another day in first again.
Walk off 1987 home vs. Houston, 8 days ago we were 5 out of first - but now we are tied with the Reds, Thursday afternoon at the Stick, a Kevin Mitchell 3 run homer in the 7th gave us a 6-5 lead, now it's 6-6 in the bottom of the 11th inning, and with 2 out he does it again, singling home Robby Thompson off of Rocky Childress to win it 7-6. Mitch hit the ball, career OPS+ of 142 (it was 151 as a Giant) a 142 OPS+ puts him tied for 62nd all time. Who had better career numbers?
Bonds 182 (3rd)
Mays 156 (tied for 20th)
McCovey 147 (tied for 43rd)
1993 at Chicago, we're 77-38, we have a 9 game lead in the West - sure, there's no Wild Card, but who could possibly need it? We're gonna live forever. 1-1 with an out in the 5th, Kirt Manwaring homers off Greg Hibbard. We go on to win 4-1. Manwaring spent a decade in San Francisco and was our starting catcher from '92-5. This is his best year with the bat, he had a 91 OPS+ and won his only Gold Glove (and might have deserved it, he had a defensive spike this season also). Manwaring hit 21 career homers, this was #10 (#9 was 4 days prior). Two of his last four homers will come against us when Manwaring was a Rockie, off Rueter in '98 and Rich Rodriguez in '99.
1996 at Pittsburgh, we're 14 out, so just playing out the string, we've lost 9 games to the lead in the past 5 weeks, down 8-5 in the 8th, Tom Lampkin hit a 2 run double off Dan Plesac to cut it to 1, and in the 8th, Rick Wilkins pinch hit a grand slam off Francisco Cordova and we wind up winning this one 12-10. Lampkin played in 131 games in two seasons for the Giants, he and Wilkins split time behind the plate in '96, Wilkins played in 118 games in two Giants seasons.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
