San Francisco Giants pitcher Logan Webb works against the Colorado Rockies during the fifth inning at Oracle Park in San Francisco on Sat Sep 9, 2023 (AP News photo)
Colorado (51-90). 000 000 100 – 1. 7. 0
San Francisco (72-70) 200 403 00x. – 9 13 0
Time: 2:44
Attendance: 34,290
Saturday, September 10, 2023
By Lewis Rubman
SAN FRANCISCO–The Giants opened their three day weekend series last night with a come from behind 9-8 win over the Colorado Rockies and home plate umpire Shane Liversparger’s peripatetic strike zone. The Friday night heroics prevented the home team from falling into the ignominy of a losing record and helped to keep alive their hopes for a chance to cast the dice in the October crap shoot that is the wild card race with a convincing 9-1 victory at Oracle Park.
When the lights went on in the cool, gray city of love this Saturday morning, Arizona was leading the chase for the fourth and final spot, followed by Miami, Cincinnati, and San Francisco, one full game behind the Reds.
The good news is that the home team, at 71-70, trailed the Diamondbacks by only two and a half games. Their magic number for elimination was 19 with 21 games to go, which would require them to play much better than .500 ball. Their rotund defeat of the Rockies tonight gave hope that they might. just do that.
The Giants sent hard luck Logan Webb, arguably their best pitcher, to the mound. Webb, 9-12, 3.51 at game time. The veteran right hander had lost his last three starts and hadn’t won a game since going 8-2/3 innings in near no hitter against Texas on August 2. His record for the season when he threw the game’s first pitch at 6:05 was 9-12, 3.51.
Webb was sharp tonight, shutting the Rockies out for six innings on three hits and a walk. He struck out four of the 21 batters he faced and had a total pitch count of 93, only 32 of which were balls. He was the winning pitcher and now is 10-12, 3.40.
Chase Anderson, who also throws from the starboard side, was Bud Black’s choice to start for the Rox. The 35 year old veteran of 10 campaigns with seven big league teams, including this year and the Rockies has a recent history of shoulder troubles and brought a record of 0-4, 5.98 for 2023 and a lifetime mark of 58-54, 4.36 with him today.
Anderson lasted only 3-1/3, in which he gave up six runs, all earned, although two were posthumous. He issued two bases on balls and unleashed a wild pitch. The Giants got six hits off him, one of them a homer. He threw 82 pitches, 45 for strikes and was charged with the loss, dropping his record to 0-5 with an ERA of 6.49.
Mike Yastrzemski and Thairo Estrada started things off with a bang, and from a double barrelled shotgun at that, with back to back first pitch home runs, to straightaway center and over the 354 foot sign in left, respectively, in the top of the first. For Yastrzemski, the round tripper was number 14; Estrada’s was his 11th.
The Giants tacked on four more tallies in the fourth after JD Davis banged a leadoff two bagger against the brick wall in right, went to third on Wade’s single to right, and overcame The Curse of the Leadoff Double by scoring on a wild pitch to Joey Bart on which Wade advanced to second. After Bart walked, Brandon Crawford’s fly to deep right allowed Wade to move on to third.
He scored on Luis Matos’s line single to center that advanced Bart to second and sent Anderson to the showers, relieved by Gavin Hollowell, who yielded a line drive single to right by Yastrzemski that plated Bart. Rockies center fielder Nolan Jones dropped Estrada’s fly ball, but his throw forced Yastrzemski out at second while Matos scored the Giants’ final run of the frame. The orange and black now held a 6-0 lead.
Victor Vodnik, promoted from Albuquerque yesterday, made his major league debut in the home sixth and gave up his first hit (a leadoff single to Crawford), his first extra base hit (Yastrzemski’s RBI double off the Levi’s Landing sign), his first two runs (ditto for the first, and Yastrzemski scored the other on a single by Pederson), and notched his first two strikeouts (Matos and Estrada).
Nick Mears relieved him with two out and gave up and RBI single to Davis that brought in Flores, who’d reached first on an infield hit, for the third San ‘Francisco run of the inning, all of them charged to Vodnik.
Webb left a 9-0 lead for Ryan Walker to protect in the top of the seventh. Elías Díaz hit a leadoff double and, no curse here, moved to third on Jones’s grounder to second and then scored on Elehuris Montero’s sac fy to left. Scott Alexander took Walker’s place to hold Colorado scoreless in the eighth.
The Rockies’ first southpaw hurler of the night, Evan Justice, kept San Francisco off the board in the bottom of that frame.
Luke Jackson mopped up for San Francisco in Colorado’s last chance to make it close. They didn’t.
Arizona had defeated the Cubs, 3-2, at Wrigley before play began this evening in San Francisco, to the Giants didn’t lessen the 2-1/2 gap that separated them from the Diamondbacks, the current leaders. On the contrary, it reduced San Francisco’s elimination number to 18. Miami lost to the Phillies, 8-4, so the orange and black now trail the Marlins by one game.
The final encounter of the series between the Blake Street Bombers and the Bay Bridge brotherhood will start Sunday, afternoon at 5:05pm PT. Right hander Peter Lambert (3-6, 5.03) will pitch for Colorado against an as yet unannounced Giant hurler. This usually indicates that it will be a bullpen game.
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