Photo credit: @SFGiants

By: London Marq

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — It was a sunny and pristine mid-September afternoon at AT&T Park right by the Bay as the San Francisco Giants hosted the Colorado Rockies in the final matchup of a three-game series. Entering the game, the Giants sat 12 games back of the NL West-leading Dodgers, but have proved resilient against the Rockies, winning the first two games of the series to threaten the sweep. The Rockies sit in second place in the NL West and are competing with Wild Card Spot with the St. Louis Cardinals. The Rockies came into game three of this series looking to steal one back on the road and stay in playoff contention.

Determined not let the Giants play spoiler for the third time in a row, the Rockies were constantly swinging the bats. Giants’ rookie pitcher Dereck Rodriguez made it through the first inning unscathed, but with one out in the second inning, Rockies outfielder Carlos Gonzalez reaches first base on an error. That was followed by Ian Desmond getting a single and Iannetta being walked. With the bases loaded, the Rockies’ pitcher Antonio Senzatela came to the plate and helped his own cause with a liner into left field, allowing Gonzalez and Desmond to score. A few batters later, still with only one out in the inning LeMahieu hit a sac-fly to center and Iannetta tagged up and scored.  The Giants eventually escaped the jam–down 3-0.

The score remained stagnant until the sixth when the Giants manufactured a run off two hits and a walk to bring Panik around to score and bring the score to 3-1 to end the sixth.

The Giants continued to push in the eighth inning when Panik would round the bases again to decrease the Rockies’ advantage to just one. The late game heroics gave the Giants a chance in the ninth, but the Rockies shut the door to show why they are in playoff contention. They got the win, 3-2.

The Giants, despite being well out of contention, prove that they can play competitive baseball. With rumors swirling, that manager Bruce Bochy may not be re-signed next season, series like this may go a long way to dispel such rumors.

The Giants will play three more series this season. Two of those series will be the Cardinals and Dodgers, both of whom are playoff contenders. The Giants will look to finish 2018 strong, play some spoilers, and get some quality wins before the offseason.