May 3 - Top 5 Moments in San Francisco Giants History

Yesterday

What is this all about?

Here are the top 5 May 3 moments in San Francisco Giants history.

1968 home vs Cardinals, how about this - Giants down 4-2 in the 9th, 2 on, 2 out, Steve Carlton vs. Willie McCovey - McCovey singles to score both runs and tie the game...

Walk off 1968 home vs. Cardinals...same game...next batter, following a McCovey steal of second, Willie Mays singles him home to win the game.  Mays was a 6 and a half win player in '68 which only gave him his 14th best ever season.

Walk off 2009 home vs Rockies, scoreless, bottom of the tenth, Rich Aurilia singles home Steve Holm (SteveHolm!) off of Manny Corpas to win it for the good guys.  This is it for the 37 year old Aurilia, he retires at season's end.

2011 at Mets, tied at 6 in the 9th, Aubrey Huff (in an 0-20 slump) leads off with a homer off Taylor Buchholz, that's the final run of a 7-6 win.  Huff's career year was the season before in helping the Giants win their first San Francisco World Series, this was the hangover year, he was hitting .183 on this date and was out of the league after the following season.



Walk off 2013 home vs Dodgers, this was a Kershaw game so the Giants only had one run headed to the bottom of the 9th, fortunately, LA had the same, Buster Posey, who was responsible for the first run, led off with a game winning homer off Ronald Belisario.  Through 2016, this was Posey's fifth best season.  Posey's got 37 WAR and a 136 OPS+ through 2016.  He's 30, he's got 3700 plate appearances.  That's about half of Johnny Bench's career WAR in fewer than half of Bench's career plate appearances.  If the back half of Posey's career equals his front half, he'll be the greatest catcher in baseball history.

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!

2017 at Dodgers, 1-1 in the 11th, Jeff Samardzija struck out 11 in 8 innings, allowing only 3 hits on a night where the Dodgers paid tribute to the retired Vin Scully, but we left the bases loaded in the 10th inning and got to the 11th tied at 1.  Gorkys Hernandez laced a double to left, scoring Joe Panik, we added two more and won the game 2-1.  Hernandez has a career OBP of .265, making him an unorthodox (brutal) choice as a leadoff hitter for a team that at this date had the worst run differential in all of baseball. This was the Giants first road series victory of the season.  

See you today (well, not really, because it's an off day) Go Giants!

May 2 - Top 5 Moments in San Francisco Giants History

Yesterday

What is this all about?

Here are the top 5 May 2 Moments in San Francisco Giants History

1965 at Dodgers 2-2 in the 10th, Willie McCovey hits his second homer of the game, this one off Bob Miller, we win it 4-2.  Those were homers 130, 131 in McCovey's career.  

Walk off 1975 home vs. Astros, 8th inning 1-1, 2 out, runners on the corners, Ed Goodson doubled them both home off of Tom Griffin to put us up 3-1.  We'd go on to win 5-4.  Goodson came up through the system, picked up a few hundred plate appearances as the starting third baseman in '73.  He was near the end of the Giants run; a month and a half later we dealt him to Atlanta.

Walk off 1993 home vs Expos, the Giants were 16-9 and looking to sweep the Expos on a Sunday at the Stick, with two out Barry Bonds singled home Willie McGee off Jeff Fassero for the win.  This, of course, was Barry's first year in San Francisco, he had an OPS+ of 206.  The top 11 seasons for left fielders in organization history are all Bonds seasons - this is the 5th best.  

Walk off 1995 home vs Dodgers, 5 hours at the Stick. 14 scoreless innings.  14.  In the top of the 15th, LA scored 3 off Mark Dewey.  With 2 outs and nobody on in the bottom of the 15th, we got a couple of baserunners and Robby Thompson hit a 3 run homer off Greg Hansell to tie the score.  Bonds singled - and then Matt Williams doubled him home to win the game. This was Hideo Nomo's big league debut.  Thompson has more plate appearances than any second baseman in San Francisco history by over a thousand.

Walk off 2004 home vs Marlins, The Giants scored 5 in the second, but seven San Francisco pitchers later and it was 8-8 in the bottom of the 11th, 2 on, 1 out, a Yorvit Torrealba double off Matt Perisho scores Bonds to win the game.  We signed Torrealba when he was 15, he got 75 plate appearances in the low minors at 16 years old in '95.  Nine years later he's walking off the Marlins.

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!

May 1 - Top 5 Moments in San Francisco Giants History

May 1

What is this all about?

Here are the top 5 May 1 moments in San Francisco Giants history.

1959 at Milwaukee, it's year two for the San Francisco Giants; scoreless in the 5th, Bob Schmidt hits a three run homer off Carl Willey, the Giants beat the Braves 6-4.  Schmidt had been in the organization since '51 but didn't make the club until the move west; he was the primary starting catcher on that first San Francisco club and got a thousand plate appearances until being moved with Don Blasingame to the Reds for Ed Bailey.

Walk off 1973 home vs Pittsburgh, the Giants came in 18-6 but were down 7-1 headed to the bottom of the 9th.  We batted around.  Batted around in the bottom of the 9th, how about that?   We got a 2 out grand slam from Chris Arnold (one of only 4 career homers) - but still that only cut the score to 7-5, and with 2 out, nobody on and a 2 run deficit how good do you feel about winning the game (you shouldn't feel good, you're gonna lose 99% of the time).  We loaded the bases a second time - and Dave Giusti gave up a 3 run double to Bobby Bonds and the Giants had as improbable a comeback as you're likely to see.

2004 home vs Marlins, 7th inning, down 3-2, 2 out, bases loaded, perhaps the least likeable player in San Francisco history, AJ Pierzynski singled home 2 off of Carl Pavano.  We won 6-3.  You know how they say "he's the type of player who you hate when he's on the other team but you love when he's on your team"?  That's not Pierzynski.  You just hate that guy.  He hit into a league leading 27 double plays in his one season in San Francisco.

2013 at Arizona, down 6-4 in the 8th, 2 on, 2 out, Brandon Belt hits a two strike 3 run homer off David Hernandez and the Giants win 9-6.  Through 2016, this was Belt's best year with the bat, an OPS+ of 139.



Walk off 2015 home vs Angels,  2-2 in the 9th, bases loaded, 2 out, Joe Panik breaks the tie with a pinch hit off Joe Smith to score Gregor Blanco and the Giants win it 3-2. Through 2016, this was Panik's best season, the 32nd best season for a second baseman in organizational history.

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!

April 30 - Top 5 Moments in San Francisco Giants History

Yesterday

What is this all about?

Here are the top 5 April 30 Moments in San Francisco Giants history.

Walk off 1982 home vs Mets, Giants down 4-2 in the 9th, 2 on, Reggie Smith hits a 3 run homer off Neil Allen to send everyone home.  Reggie Smith was a terrific baseball player who should have made some Hall of Fame noise, this was the last year of his career, he was 37 years old - and he still hit the ball, he had a 134 OPS+.

Walk off 1986 home vs Pirates, 5,000 paid attendance for a four hour game, the Giants tied it in the 9th to force extra innings, this spot was the 12th, bases loaded, 2 out, Chris Brown singles home Robby Thompson off of Bob Patterson to win the game.  Brown hit .317 in '86, he never hit .250 again in his career.

1996 at San Diego, Giants down 4-2 in the 5th, bases loaded, Bob Tewksbury on the mound...Barry Bonds at the plate...grand slam, Giants up 6-4 and go on to win 9-4.  Barry hit 586 home runs as a Giant, 9 of them grand slams, this was his third.

2011 at Washington, six Giants pitchers combined on a two hitter (it was less dominant that it seems, Jonathan Sanchez either walked or hit by pitch 7 of the Nats first ten batters) the last was Brian Wilson, who (through walks and hit batsmen) had the bases loaded with 2 out, a 2-1 lead and a full count on Adam LaRoche - and he struck him out.  The Giants were the first team in over half a century to put a dozen men on base via walks/hit batsmen and give up less than 2 runs.

2013 at Arizona, this was scoreless (Bumgarner vs. Cahill) until the bottom of the 8th when the Snakes went up a run, now it's the top of the 9th, JJ Putz on the mound, he gives up a 2 run homer to Pablo Sandoval and that winds up the final score.   Except for 2010, in every year of Sandoval's 7 year Giants career his OPS+ was over 110, and he hasn't broken 100 since leaving (through the 2016 season).

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!

April 29 - Top 5 Moments in San Francisco Giants History

Yesterday

What is this all about?

Here are the top 5 moments on April 29 in San Francisco Giants history.

1969 home vs. Reds, the Giants had won 7 straight coming in but there were only 3200 paid for this Tuesday afternoon game at the Stick, the Giants were down 2-1 with 2 out in the 8th when Bobby Bonds hit a 2 run homer off Wayne Granger to give the Giants a 3-2 lead.  Bonds hit 186 homers as a Giant; this was his 13th.

Walk off 1969 home vs. Reds, same game, the Reds tied it at 3 in the 9th, now it's the 13th, two out, Hal Lanier on third, it's Bonds - again - he singles him home off George Culver for the game winner.

Walk off 1975 home vs. Reds, six years later we did it to Cincinnati again, 3-3 with an out in the 9th, Marc Hill scores all the way from first on a Chris Speier double and we win 4-3.   Only Rich Aurilia has more San Francisco plate appearances at short than Chris Speier.

1989 at Pittsburgh, the Giants came into the 9th trailing 3-2, tied it on a Kevin Mitchell homer, and then a couple of outs later Terry Kennedy hit what would turn out to be the game winning homer off Jeff Robinson.  Robinson came up through our system, lost 15 games for us in '84, we dealt him to Pittsburgh for Rick Reuschel in '87.  This was Kennedy's first of three San Francisco seasons that ended his career; we got him for Bob Melvin in a catcher trade before the season with Baltimore.  He was a perfectly acceptable backup catcher on a team that had several of them (young Manwaring, old Brenly).

Walk off 2006 home v Diamondbacks,  Moises Alou led off the bottom of the 9th with a home run off Luis Vizcaino to give us a 3-2 win.  This was 39 year old Moises Alou in his second and final year as a Giant; he couldn't give you much with the glove but Moises could still hit, he had a 132 OPS+ even at this advanced age.

See you tomorrow.  Go Giants!