Yesterday
Here are the top 5 August 31 moments in San Francisco Giants history.
1963 at LA, we're 7.5 out, trying to avoid a sweep, a Cepeda 9th inning homer forced extras, this is the 12th, with 2 out Felipe Alou singles home the go ahead run off of Larry Sherry. This was a 4 hit game for Alou.
1966 at New York, this is what's up - it's game 133 and we are tied for first place with Pittsburgh, at 22 games over .500, only the Orioles have a better record in all of MLB. 50,000 paid at Shea, each team only gets 4 hits. Marichal throws a complete game and wins his 20th, the big shot was Mays - he tripled in the 9th off of Jack Fisher and then scored on a Jerry Grote error. We win 2-1. Who was the Giants CF after Mays? The answer just below...
1980 home vs. Mets, 9.5 out, first game of a doubleheader, 4-4 in the 6th, Bill North breaks the tie with a single off Dyar Miller. We go on and win 11-4. The Mets would go on to lose 12 more in a row. The first San Francisco center fielder was, of course, Mays. We've talked about the second, that was Garry Maddox. We've mentioned the guy who replaced him, that was Von Joshua. Then came Larry Herndon. And, in 79-80, North. But who was next? That answer just below...
2010 home vs. Rockies, we're 4 out and haven't seen first since early May, but we're 1.5 out of the WC meaning we're in the race. 2-2 in the 8th, Andres Torres homers off Matt Belisle, we go on to win 5-2. Torres was our CF that day, here's all of them, with OPS+ and PA.
58-71 Mays 157, 12015
72-4 Maddox 104, 1738
75 Joshua 108, 707
76-78 Herndon 93, 2305
79-80 North 98, 1222
81 Jerry Martin 85, 267
82-4, 87 Davis 113, 3564
85-6 Gladden 106, 1419
88-90 Butler 119, 2083 (best CF bat since Mays)
91- McGee 107, 1748
92-5 Lewis 77, 2054 (Just killing us with the bat)
96, 99-01 Benard 96, 2945
97-8 Hamilton 98, 965
02- Shinjo 78, 398
03-04 Grissom 94, 1371
05 -Jason Ellison 74, 491
06- Finley 83, 481
07- Roberts 76, 573 (can we can a decent bat in center?)
08-10 Rowand 87, 1865
11- Torres 105, 1438
12-15 Pagan 103, 2471
16- Span 93, 1086
2011 home vs. Cubs, we were in first place August 9 - now we're 6 back, the WC isn't any closer, so we really need to step on the gas as this is game 137. Madison Bumgarner goes 8, gives up 2 hits and strikes out 11. We win 4-0, the big shot a Jeff Keppinger 4th inning homer to plate the game's initial run (Pablo followed with a homer). 17 year old Bumgarner was the tenth pick overall in 2007 out of a North Carolina high school. David Price went first, Jason Heyward 14th, Josh Donaldson 48th. We had a second pick, Tim Alderson, another HS arm, went 22nd overall, kicked around multiple minor league systems through 2016 and never pitched an inning in the bigs. Bumgarner came up at 19 in 2009, joined the rotation in 2010 and through 2016 hasn't looked back. Career Giants ERA+ of 124 in 1483 IP. Through 2016, Bumgarner's the 14th greatest San Francisco Giant of all time.
See you tomorrow. Go Giants!
