SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants have taken blow after blow over the past week and sustained another significant one early Sunday afternoon against the Reds. But if their response to losing their dynamic center fielder offered any indication, then they don’t plan to waive the white flag anytime soon.
Without Jung Hoo Lee, who crumpled onto the warning track in the top of the first inning, the Giants overcame an erratic start from Kyle Harrison and dug themselves out of an early hole to beat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-5, and clinch their second straight series win.
“Look, it’s great to win a game when you have a lot of bad news during the course of it,” manager Bob Melvin said afterward. “To be able to fight back … there were just a lot of contributions in different ways today. It ended up being a good day, in terms of win-loss.”
Rallying from a three-run hole, the Giants matched the largest of their six comeback victories this season. With their third walkoff hit of the season, they improved to 1-1 in extra-inning games. Playing host to the Dodgers beginning Monday, they will attempt to become the final team in the majors to win three games in a row.
After Ryan Walker served up a game-tying home run in the eighth inning, Sunday’s win required the walk-off heroics of Casey Schmitt. Schmitt drove a two-out, two-strike pitch from Lucas Sims into the left-center field gap, allowing Luis Matos to race home from second and score the winning run.
“I was just looking for something I could hit and let it rip,” said Schmitt, one of four position players called up since last Friday to fill in for a litany of injuries. “It sucks to lose a player, but hopefully he’s going to be all right. It was a great team win and a lot of fun to be a part of it.”
Luke Jackson earned the win, powering a fastball past Elly De La Cruz for the final out of the 10th inning to strand the Reds’ automatic runner at third base.
Three hours earlier, Harrison’s first pitch struck TJ Friedl in the hand, forcing him from the game, and the baseball gods took almost immediate retribution. The errant entreaty was a sign of things to come from the left-hander, who issued five walks over five innings, but it was hardly the worst development of the day.
Just five batters after Harrison plunked the Reds’ leadoff man, Lee laid in pain on the warning track as Friedl and three other Reds rounded the bases. Giving chase to Jeimer Candelario’s bases-clearing double, Lee leaped into the center field wall, appeared to jam his left arm, and crumpled to the ground.
He dislocated his left shoulder on the play, Melvin confirmed after the game.
While the Giants will have a better idea of his prognosis after undergoing MRIs on Monday, the initial outlook, according to Melvin, is “not great.”
“He goes all out,” Melvin said. “When he hit the wall and he went down and didn’t get up, I didn’t have a great feeling about it.”
Fans chanted Lee’s name as he walked off the field, with head trainer Dave Groeschner holding his left arm in place.
Candelario’s double came after Harrison loaded the bases without surrendering a hit. Still, it amounted to the only damage the Reds could manage against the rookie left-hander, who settled in to complete five innings, allowing five base runners the rest of the way.
Harrison walked off the mound trailing 3-0 but was shown pumping his fist in the dugout as the Giants flipped the score in the bottom half of the inning.
“I just came out flat today,” Harrison said. “I hate to put the boys behind early, but they came out and had my back. It was awesome. It’s resilience. That’s Giants baseball as long as I can remember. Just trying to keep the team in the ballgame and the bats came around.”
If Lee is forced to miss time, as it would appear, he would be the seventh Giants position player to land on the injured list just since last Friday. Before first pitch, Michael Conforto was placed on the IL, too, with a strained right hamstring he suffered Saturday night.
The personnel in the home clubhouse has begun to resemble the group that made up the core of Triple-A Sacramento’s Opening Day roster.
It is a good sign for the Giants’ long-term prospects, then, or at least their ability to withstand the current storm, that their young reinforcements have not only not hindered their chances the past two games but played pivotal roles in their wins.
After taking over for Lee in center, Tyler Fitzgerald lined a double that kickstarted the Giants’ five-run rally in the fifth inning. Starting behind the plate for Patrick Bailey, who just returned from a concussion and was scratched with a viral illness, Blake Sabol delivered the final blow of the inning with an RBI single that drove home Heliot Ramos, the defensive star of Saturday’s win who provided another pair of base knocks Sunday.
“It’s just one of those times during the season where you have to persevere and other guys get some opportunities,” Melvin said. “Those guys came through today. We won the game. That’s all it’s about. We’ll regroup tomorrow.”
The go-ahead shot couldn’t have happened anywhere else, maybe not even Oracle Park in different conditions.
LaMonte Wade Jr. lifted a fly ball that had no business landing anywhere but the right fielder’s glove. Reaching the jetstream blowing out to McCovey Cove, though, the ball carried and carried, just far enough to clear the Levi’s Landing sign, about 10 feet to the left of the right-field foul pole.
The towering home run traveled only 321 feet. It left the bat at a 50-degree launch angle. In 29 other ballparks, it would have been a fly ball out.
Since Statcast began tracking launch angle in 2015, there had been 77,951 balls put in play on such a sharp upward trajectory. Wade’s was only the fourth to clear the outfield fence, tied for the steepest launch angle for any home run in the majors in that span.
“It was crazy today,” Melvin said. “There were some balls I thought weren’t going out; there were some balls that I thought were and didn’t. The wind really was unpredictable today. Even Casey’s last ball got pushed a little bit.”
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Notable
Patrick Bailey (viral illness) was a late scratch from the Giants’ lineup. After returning from concussion protocol Saturday, Bailey was initially penciled in to bat fourth as the designated hitter but was replaced by Wilmer Flores approximately 10 minutes before first pitch.
Up next
The vaunted Dodgers make their first of two visits to Oracle Park this season for a three-game series that begins Monday.
RHP Jordan Hicks (3-1, 2.30) will be opposed by RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto (4-1, 2.79) in game one, with first pitch scheduled for 6:45 p.m.
