By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–Nick Hundley has been one of the biggest bright spots for a bad Giants baseball team in 2017, a point that got hammered home on Saturday.

The journeyman catcher started behind the plate, moving Buster Posey to first base, and with the game tied in the tenth, Hundley provided the game-winning home run off reliever Ryan Sheriff.

“To play a team like the Cardinals, who are still fighting for the playoff race and to come out and get a win, it’s really important,” Hundley said. “It’s important for us, and it’s important for the league. The rest of the league deserves our best shot, too.”

The Cardinals fell seven games behind the Cubs in the NL Central with the loss, the meandering Giants simply ended a tough. ,,stretch of 10 losses in 13 ga558mes with the win, a stretch that again had folks talking about the club becoming only the second Giants team to lose 100 games (1985, 102 losses).

Starters Jeff Samardzija and Lance Lynn were the stars of the first nine innings with the Shark allowing two hits, one run in seven innings, and Lynn allowing one hit in eight innings. With the hot weather conducive to power hitting, the two starters had to be on their game to get things done. They were.

“When you have horses going like that, runs are hard to come by,” Hundley said.

A couple of singles and a wild pitch allowed the Cardinals to push across a run in the fourth. That stood as the difference in the game until Posey’s RBI single in the ninth. What drama remained, was conducted in a succinct, decisive 10th inning.

First, Dexter Fowler tripled off Sam Dyson to open the inning, the second straight day Fowler had soured Dyson’s appearance. On Friday night, Fowler’s big hit opened the floodgates. This time, Dyson responded to the challenge, escaping without allowing a run.

With pinch-runner Harrison Bader on third for the injured Fowler, Dyson induced a ground ball out from Yadier Molina. Then Stephen Piscotty also hit a grounder to third baseman Pablo Sandoval, and the Panda threw out the breaking Bader at the plate. Dyson then recorded the third out on Greg Garcia’s grounder that resulted in a fielder’s choice.

That set the table for Hundley’s heroics, the rare home run down the right field line into the arcade, launched by a right-handed hitter. Given the backup catcher’s popularity with his teammates, the ensuing celebration at home plate was especially spirited.

“He’s an amazing teammate, one of the best I’ve ever had,” Samardzija said of Hundley. “You’re not surprised because he’s always competing.”