Category: San Francisco Giants

By Morris Phillips

Brett Anderson’s first post-season start came after a 14-month period of inactivity following elbow surgery, preceded by only six regular season starts, and just two weeks after a muscle strain sidelined him again.

Anderson pitched six shutout innings that night, picked up the win, and kept his Oakland A’s from elimination in the 2012 NLDS at the hands of the Detroit Tigers.  Oakland manager Bob Melvin gushed at Anderson’s performance that night, saying “I don’t know how you could expect more than we got out of him tonight.”

Three years later, Anderson—finally healthy—made his case for another post-season start on Thursday at AT&T Park.

Anderson pitched into the eighth inning, allowing just four hits as the Dodgers held on to beat the Giants, 3-2.  After losing seven straight to the Giants in San Francisco for the first time in more than 50 years, the Dodgers rebounded by winning two of the final three meetings this season while putting the finishing touches on an NL West title.

Anderson had the Giants out-of-tune, retiring 14 consecutive batters at one point, and keeping them off the scoreboard until Angel Pagan’s infield single scored Jarrett Parker in the eighth.   Anderson rebounded after Pagan reached, getting Brandon Crawford to ground out. That’s when manager Don Mattingly elected to remove Anderson in favor of reliever Chris Hatcher in search of the final out of the inning.

Kelby Tomlinson made things interesting when he greeted Hatcher with an RBI double to bring the Giants within a run.  But Hatcher recovered too, inducing Matt Duffy to fly out to end the inning.

The Dodgers still have pending business over the weekend: trying to post a better record than the Mets in an attempt to capture home field advantage in their best-of-five series starting October 9, and trying to figure out which starter will follow Zach Greinke and Clayton Kershaw in their post-season rotation.

Anderson made his case for the role with his outing Thursday.  The 27-year old surpassed 180 innings pitched in a season for the first time, and made his 31^st start of the season, also a career-best.  His trademark sinker had the youthful Giants’ lineup off stride as Anderson compiled 15 ground ball outs.

“He had us off-balance all day,” manager Bruce Bochy admitted.

Bochy elected to pencil in just two veterans—Buster Posey and Marlon Byrd—in his starting lineup, and the inexperience showed.  No Giant reached second base until the eighth inning, and that was essentially due to Howie Kendrick’s throwing error.

Anderson recorded only his second win against the Giants in nine career starts.

Tim Hudson started for the Giants and Bochy pulled the veteran making the final appearance of his 17-year big league career in the third inning, as the Dodgers were building an early 3-0 lead.  Hudson’s balky hip figured to make his final stint a short one, and when he departed he did so to enormous applause and hearty hugs from his teammates who greeted him on the top step of the dugout.

Hudson leaves baseball as the active leader in wins with 222.

The Giants will honor Hudson and Jeremy Affeldt over the weekend during their season-concluding series with the Rockies.  Affeldt announced his retirement before the game, and he relieved Hudson Thursday, pitching the remainder of the third inning, allowing a hit, and recording a strikeout.

“I had a good friend that I played with a long time,” Affeldt said.  “He told me, ‘This game is meant for young men and sometimes when you’re too old to play, you need to leave.’  And I feel right now that I need to leave.  I’m walking around… they have to tape me together just to be able to get me out there.  So it is time to leave, and it’s time to let someone else have a chance to play.  So I’m going to take my ball and go home.”

Bochy had fond words for Affeldt, who along with Sergio Romo, Santiago Casilla and Javier Lopez pitched out of the bullpen on all three Giants’ World Series title winners.

“He kept guy loose and had fun.  Those guys are hard to replace,” Bochy said.

Affeldt began his press conference as a full-fledged comedian, saying, “I just want to announce my two-year extension with the Giants.  Sorry, Larry (Baer), I don’t know if you knew that.”

Matt Cain, one of Affeldt’s closest friends on the team, attended the press conference, and wasn’t disappointed, saying to no one in particular when he entered “I want to see what he’s going to say!”

By Morris Phillips

In the biggest game of the year, with the odds stacked against them, the Giants turned to some kid from L.A. “who was sitting on the couch” two weeks ago, not so full of himself that he would ignore a mysterious phone call at 1:30 a.m.

And how did that work out?

Pretty good.

Trevor Brown provided the critical offense for San Francisco on Monday night in a tense, four-hour struggle with the NL West-leading Dodgers that went to the Giants, 3-2 in 12 innings.  As Bruce Bochy so musically captured in the pre-game, the Giants are “staying alive” still facing the daunting task of making up a five-game deficit in the season’s final six games.

Brown, a 2012 10^th round draftee out of UCLA, concluded his season with the Triple A Sacramento on September 7.  Like Barry Zito for the A’s, Brown had turned the page on baseball in 2015 when he got a phone call from Giants GM Bobby Evans well after midnight in which he found out that the Giants wanted him to gear up and make his major league debut.

The injury-plagued Giants made room for Brown immediately, plugging him in at catcher and moving regular catcher, Buster Posey, to first base.   Brown started all three games in the Bay Bridge Series over the weekend and was again behind the plate Monday in the biggest game of the year.

All Brown did was manage veteran Jake Peavy’s start beautifully and knock in the Giants’ first two runs with a double in the second inning.  In the 12^th, the Giants won it with Alejandro De Aza’s sacrifice fly with the bases loaded plated Marlon Byrd with the game-winning run.

Peavy, who had worked with Brown in spring training, and manager Bruce Bochy couldn’t have been more impressed with the kid who grew up a Dodgers’ fan.

“Brownie’s got a lot of confidence,” Peavy said.  “Brownie feels like he belongs. The moment’s not too big for him, he’s a smart kid who’s educated and he’s not letting the situation get the best of him.”

Far from it.  Brown spoke of all the studying he crammed into his weekend, first studying the A’s hitters, then the Dodgers, developing chemistry with the entire Giants’ pitching staff, and then still maintaining energy for the game itself.

In his critical at-bat, Brown fell behind 0-2, saw a couple of balls, then on the sixth pitch against dominant starter Zach Greinke he pounced.

“I was looking for a fastball the whole at-bat and I finally got one and I hit it,” Brown said.

Brown’s double in the right field gap plated Byrd and Kelby Tomlinson and gave the Giants a lead that would maintain until the top of ninth when Andre Ethier’s RBI ground out evened the score.

That set up a tense, extra-innings’ duel in which both teams exhausted the meat of their bullpens in a search for critical outs.

The Giants got big stints from relievers Josh Osich, Santiago Casilla, and Hunter Strickland.  Sergio Romo allowed two of three batters he faced to reach, and was unceremoniously lifted for Strickland, who coaxed a double play ball off the bat of Chase Utley.

The Dodgers’ bullpen was up to the task as well with former starting pitcher Juan Nicasio providing the lengthiest stint after Greinke departed after seven innings.  Nicasio recorded five outs in the ninth and tenth innings, keeping the Giants scoreless despite walking two and giving up a hit.

Pedro Baez pitched the 11^th for the Dodgers, getting Brandon Crawford to ground into an inning-ending double play.

In the 12^th, Tomlinson and Byrd singled off Yimi Garcia to put runners at first and third with no outs.  After Brown grounded out, De Aza provided the game-winning sacrifice fly.

The Dodgers have dropped all seven contests this season at AT&T Park, their longest losing streak in San Francisco since 1961.  Overall, the Dodgers have dropped four straight, after being swept in Colorado over the weekend, and on Tuesday they face 18-game winner Madison Bumgarner.

Could the NL West-leaders be feeling the pressure?

“I don’t think so,” Peavy admitted.

On Tuesday, Clayton Kershaw and Bumgarner face off for the third time this season at 7:15pm.