Giants Win Game of the Year 6-5 in 14 Innings

Nailed it.

This started off as a terrible game. Really, just abysmal. Stranded leadoff runners by the bucketful. Giants swinging and missing at balls bowled slowly underhand across home plate. Everyone not named "Andres Torres" or "Pablo Sandoval" looking like they were swinging a rolled-up wet carpet. Madison Bumgarner giving up five runs. I noted on Twitter that this was a real stinky butthole of a game and a pretty lousy-looking team (in so many words).

These days, it seems like if you want to have your team look like just the best team around, you should play the Giants. The Padres, for seven or nine innings there, looked like they were the Bronx Bombers crossed with the Big Red Machine and huffing Swingin' A's fumes. Driving balls to the gaps, stealing a million bases, striking out the side on one pitch. Nate Schierholtz launched a mammoth home run off of the right field foul pole in the middle innings to bring the Giants within one run, but then the Padres scored again. Two runs? Insurmountable.

But in the eighth inning, Pablo Sandoval crushed a bomb to Triples Alley that he thought was gone. He only ended up with a game-tying double, but it was enough at the time. The Giants bullpen nodded and said, "We got this." Sandoval made just the best possible play to end the top of the ninth inning with a man on third, and the bullpen was off to the races, retiring the last 17 batters they faced. Giants pitchers ended the night with 19 strikeouts and one walk. Think about that for a second. I'll wait.

The Padres and Giants spent the last five innings trying to out-not-score one another, but only the Giants were getting men on base. The bottom of the fourteenth opened with the Padres inserting a pitcher named Pat Neshek, whose delivery can best be described as "oh my god what am i looking at." He hurked and jerked and threw a ball to Nate Schierholtz, then got a swinging strike, then a foul. Just as I was thinking, "Man, wouldn't it be awesome if..." Neshek spasmed and frothed and threw a ball out over the middle of the plate, and Nate Schierholtz hit just the highest fly ball I've ever seen. The Padres right fielder drifted back slowly and settled under it against the wall and... PANGGGG... it bounced off the tin roof top of the wall and into the cove. Juggernate's first two-homer game, and the Giants had their tenth walk-off win of the season.

A lousy game that was a must-win for the Giants became one of the best games I've seen this season. The Giants had this game in the bag multiple times and couldn't put it away. The offense needs at least one bat. The return of Mike Fontenot will be a cause for celebration. Yeesh. But this was a big, big win. What a game.

Courtesy of JCT from McCovey Chronicles: JUGGERNATE

Juggernate from JCT on Vimeo.

You may want to skip the "video game" intro, but here's nearly five minutes of Nate Schierholtz gunning down fools from right field and getting clutch hits like a maniac.

Baseball...is awesome.

Giants Win 7-5 in Improbable Fashion in 11 Innings

So graceful, so lithe.

Bat Tejada second, bat Huff fourth. Sure. Do whatever. Leave Lincecum in too long. Whatever. The Giants took their worst-looking lineup of the year into the belly of the shingles-riddled LaRussa beast and overcame two separate, insurmountable leads.

Eli Whiteside can't hang on to a pair of swinging third strikes or throw out a runner on a steal attempt. People were getting on base like gangbusters tonight, but there was Tejada, grounding to second base three times in a row. There was Huff, grounding to first three times in a row. Huff hit a tater that put the Giants on top for about ten seconds -- he'll probably be moved to the three-hole tomorrow -- but then Lincecum served up a two-run dinger and that looked like the ballgame.

And then, seemingly for the first time this season, Bochy used his bullpen correctly. Even more shocking, Nate Schierholtz knocked in the tying run in the top of the ninth. The bullpen held fast and shut down the heart of the St. Louis lineup. Nate Schierholtz knocked in the go-ahead run and then Brandon "Stamos" Crawford brought him home with a key insurance run in the eleventh. LaRussa tried his ultimate gambit -- turning off the lights of the stadium with a man on and two out in the bottom of the eleventh inning -- but Wilson calmly walked to the dugout and waited about fifteen minutes while the lights came back on, then threw one pitch to induce grounder and end the game.

This sure looked like nothing doing after the Cardinals took a 5-4 lead. Burrell had popped out in his pinch-hit appearance. Manny Burriss had taken over for Huff and was batting cleanup. I tried to think of who in the lineup could possibly crank one out, and all I could come up with was "Cody Ross." It never occurred to me that this craptackle band of no-bats would string together a bunch of clutch hits.

Huff was 1-for-4 tonight. Freddy Sanchez and Nate Schierholtz had three hits. Cody Ross had four. The number two hitter, Michael Tejada, was 0-for-6. If Brandon Crawford keeps being awesome, there's no way he doesn't take TJ's job once the Kung Fu Panda returns. Then again...Bruce Bochy.

The Giants attempt to win the series and finish the road trip on a happy note tomorrow. Pray for justice.

Absolute Craziness

Like a boss.

Today the Giants got their World Championship rings and celebrated by wearing SWANK gold-lettered jerseys and caps. Noted San Francisco Hall of Famers Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, Perry and Marichal all got rings, as did the crack Giants announce team of the esteemed Jon Miller and Lon Simmons, the destined-to-be-esteemed Dave Fleming, and the esteemed-by-some-loathed-by-others Kruk and Kuip.

It was a truly magical evening that was nearly ruined by injury early on, as center fielder Andres "The Giant" Torres went out with an ankle injury after fielding a fly ball early on. Amazingly, his replacement, the defensive whizkid and speedster who swings like Will Clark but without the power or average, Nate "Juggernate" Schierholz managed to have himself a three-hit night.

Things managed to get worse still thanks to Colby Rasmus, as he cranked a rare Matt Cain mistake just over the right-center wall to put the loathesome Cardinals up 2-1. The score seemed certain to remain that way, or to even get worse, but Dan Runzler pitched himself out of a self-imposed mega-jam, and with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, down by one with two men on, Miguel "Michael" Tejada stepped to the plate. Tejada famously hacked at a shoelaces-high first pitch on Opening Day to foul out and end an inning and a rally with the bases loaded. Here, however, he miraculously turned an 0-2 count into a 3-2 count and spoiled a handful of tough pitches to stay alive. It was a hell of an at-bat, regardless of the outcome.

But man, what an outcome.

Miggy jacked a fly to deepest left-center. When the ball left the bat, Cards catcher Yadier Molina actually hung his head and began walking off the field, but the ball stayed in the park. The aforementioned St. Louis hero Colby "sub-par cheese" Rasmus raced towards the warning track, trying to follow the ball in the 18MPH wind. He went for a basket-style catch, got a hand on it, and dropped it onto the outfield grass as both baserunners crossed the plate and Tejada leaped for joy, mobbed by the emptying dugout.

It was the second walk-off for San Francisco in two nights, and in their first two games at home. Regardless how much Tejada may stink up the infield and the lineup for the balance of the season, tonight he looked every bit as much a World Champion as his teammates.

Watching the 2011 Giants is much the same as watching the 2010 version: heart palpitations at every turn. But if this season turns out half as well as the last one, it will be well worth the ride. (P.S. I hope Pujols's slump lasts forever.)

- Bill