Of course a playoff game between the San Francisco Giants, those inexplicable #EvenYear magicians, and St. Louis Cardinals, the late-inning comeback club, would end this way. With a walk-off error on a bunt, that is. Oh, and in extra innings to boot.
The Giants’ postseason fortune in 2014—like that from 2012 and 2010 before it—continued as they won 5-4 in 10 innings to go up two games to one on the Cardinals, who stormed all the way back from a 4-0 first-inning deficit on Tuesday.
The deciding run came when Brandon Crawford, a lefty hitter who had been walked by lefty specialist Randy Choate to lead off the 10th, sprinted home from second base when Choate fielded Gregor Blanco’s sacrifice bunt attempt only to promptly throw it away down the right field line.
It was a so-very-Giants way to win, especially considering San Francisco had managed exactly one hit—by starting pitcher Tim Hudson, no less—after that four-run barrage in the first until Juan Perez’s single in the 10th pushed Crawford to second.
And yet despite the seeming randomness with which this club keeps on winning, the Giants have regained the edge in a dramatic, tightly contested National League Championship Series that has featured a ninth-inning walk-off home run in Game 2 and Game 3’s walk-off E-1. Through three games, the two teams are separated by all of three runs.
“I’m a little delirious,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said in his televised postgame press conference of managing in yet another pressure-packed playoff game. “We don’t do anything easy. We scored four in the first and then nothing after that until the very end. We play a lot of tight games. It’s kind of our way.”
But the Giants don’t only play a lot of close games in October—they tend to win them.
With the next two still in San Francisco, the Giants have a chance to close out the Cardinals at home behind their Game 4 starter, righty Ryan Vogelsong—he of the 1.19 career playoff ERA—and lefty Madison Bumgarner, the last postseason ace still throwing, who looms in the potential clinch-the-series Game 5.
On the other side, the Cardinals are dealing with injuries (or at least injury concerns) to their two most important players, right-hander Adam Wainwright with his balky elbow and catcher Yadier Molina with his cranky left oblique.
“I woke up [Monday] moving a little better,” Molina said, via Lyle Spencer of MLB.com. “I feel good enough to catch.”
And yet, Molina isn’t healthy enough to hit, so he missed Game 3, the first playoff game he hadn’t played in since Game 2 of the World Series all the way back in 2004—a whopping 84 games ago. Sure, he got up to catch relievers Trevor Rosenthal and Seth Maness in the bullpen in the late innings, but that’s not exactly a promising sign.
Wainwright, meanwhile, is lined up to go against Bumgarner in Game 5, but that doesn’t instill much confidence given how he’s thrown this October. In two turns, the normally dependable righty has managed to make it through just nine innings while surrendering eight earned runs on 17 hits. Yikes.
Even the Cardinals’ freakish knack for finding their stroke late in games, particularly from the seventh inning on, might not be enough to overcome that. Heck, the comeback from 4-0 down to tie it at 4-4 on a solo shot by rookie Randal Grichuk in—you guessed it—the seventh wasn’t good enough Tuesday.
As Giants left fielder Travis Ishikawa, whose three-run double was the blow that put the Giants up 4-0 in the first, said, per Chris Haft of MLB.com:
Somebody asked me earlier…if there’s any other way we can score a run other than a non-conventional way, and I said, ‘If there is, we’re going to find a way.’ Just seems like…the resilience of this team. There’s no quit, whether we’re down or whether we’ve got the small lead. We’re going to find a way to get it done.
These two teams rule the NL just about every year, thanks to their uncanny (and somewhat supernatural?) ability to win—and win in dramatic, weird fashion—in October, so it’s fitting that they’re facing off in the NLCS.
But after the drama and weirdness of Game 3 and the questionable status of two key Cardinals going forward, it seems St. Louis’ late-inning comeback powers are being overwhelmed by the Giants’ random every-even-year luck.
You know, if such a thing exists.
Statistics are accurate through Oct. 14 and courtesy of MLB.com, Baseball-Reference and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted.
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