San Francisco Giants pitcher Johnny Cueto works against the Oakland Athletics in the first inning of a baseball game Friday, Aug. 14, 2020, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)
By Jeremy Kahn
SAN FRANCISCO-This new rule of a runner on second base to begin extra innings is not working out for the San Francisco Giants at home, and it helped the Oakland A’s complete a phenomenal comeback.
Matt Chapman scored on a sacrifice fly from third base off the bat of Mark Canha, as the A’s defeated the Giants 8-7 in 10 innings in the opener of the Bay Bridge Series at Oracle Park.
The A’s trailed in the game by the score of 7-2 entering the top of the ninth inning, and then began their comeback.
As first baseman Matt Olson continues to hit the ball well, as he launched his seventh home run of the season that landed in the Giants bullpen in the top of the ninth inning off of Trevor Gott.
Things went from great, too good, too bad and then finally to the downright ridiculous within a span of four batters after the Olson home run.
Gott walked Canha, then the bizarre occurred when Grossman reached on a fielders choice, when Flores fielded the ball and threw to Brandon Crawford to get the force out instead of just going over to first for what would have been the second out of the inning. Gott then hit Davis to load the bases, and then with one swing of the bat, the game was all tied up, as Piscotty launched a grand slam that sent the A’s dugout into a frenzy.
That was the second grand slam of the season for Piscotty and like his walk-off grand slam against the Texas Rangers, he is the 14th player in MLB history to hit two grand slams in the ninth inning in the same season and the first A’s player to ever do it (Mike Selleck of A’s PR with that note).
Tyler Rogers replaced Gott, and immediately gave up a single to Sean Murphy and then a double to Marcus Siemen to put runners on second and third with one out. Rogers then struck out Chad Pinder for the second out of the inning, and after an eight pitch at-bat, Rogers struck out Chapman to end the threat.
Johnny Cueto was lights out, as he went seven innings, allowing two runs on just three hits, walked two and struck out five; however, he did not fare in the decision after the As exploded for five runs in the top of the ninth inning to tie up the game.
Evan Longoria got the Giants on the board in the bottom of the first inning, as he took a Jesus Luzardo pitch and put it into the left field bleachers to give the Giants a quick 1-0 lead.
Hunter Pence did even more damage in the bottom of the third inning, as he hit a three-run home run off of Luzardo.
Longoria broke what looked like the game wide open in the bottom of the fourth inning, as he singled to left field that allowed both Chadwick Tromp and Mauricio Dubon to score to give the Giants a six-run lead.
The A’s finally got to Cueto in the top of the seventh inning, as Canha singled to left and then Grossman tripled down the right field to break up the shutout.
With Cueto at exactly 100 pitches, Giants manager Gabe Kapler came out to the mound, but instead of pulling Cueto, he let him stay on the mound to face Kris Davis, who grounded out to Solano to score Grossman from third base, Cueto then got out of the inning, when he got Piscotty to ground out to Dubon for the final out of the inning.
Solano extended his career-high best hitting streak up to 16 games, when singled to lead-off the bottom of the third inning and three batters later, Pence hit his second home run in four days. The Fort Worth, Texas native returned to his home state, and more important to the city where he his major-league career began with the Houston Astros to key a come-from-behind victory that saw the Giants come back from a 6-2 deficit to win 7-6 in 10 innings.
Mike Yastrzemski he hit his fifth home run of the season that landed in the front row of the left field bleachers in the bottom of the eighth inning. With the home run, Yastrzemski raised his batting average from .297 to .307 with one swing of the bat.
NOTES: Longoria’s home run in the bottom of the first inning was the 299th home run of his career, leaving him just one shy of becoming the 149th member of the 300-home run club and would tie Chuck Klein and Justin Upton for 147th place all-time.
That was the 26th home run of Yastrzemskis career in his 145th game, and in comparison, his grandfather Carl, who hit 452 home runs in his career hit his 26th home run in his 245th career, thank you Sarah Langs for that tidbit.
This was the first time that the A’s have won a game after trailing by five runs in the ninth inning since July 15, 1952, when the then Philadelphia A’s defeated the St. Louis Browns (now the Baltimore Orioles) when Eddie Joost hit a walk-off grand slam off of Satchel Paige to win 7-6 at Shibe Park (thank you Dave Feldman).
UP NEXT: Kevin Gausman will start for the Giants on Saturday afternoon, while Sean Manaea will start for the A’s.
