OAKLAND — The Giants had every reason to play desperate Sunday.
Their playoff hopes are dwindling. Their schedule only gets tougher. Their offense isn’t just running on fumes; it’s out of them. But they had Blake Snell on the mound, in top form again, and knew if they could push across just one run, it might be enough.
It took more than that — and an extra inning — but the Giants got just enough from their feeble offense to earn a split in the final Bay Bridge series.
The very first pitch out of Dany Jiménez’s right hand to begin the 10th inning found a landing spot over the Xfinity sign in right-center field and gave the Giants their first lead in a 4-2 win. Jerar Encarnacion jumped on the letter-high fastball and, with Matt Chapman as the automatic runner at second base, provided the Giants’ first hit with a runner in scoring position all weekend.
With a solo shot from the next batter, Michael Conforto, all four of the Giants’ runs came via the long ball, and the insurance proved useful as Ryan Walker allowed the A’s to score their automatic runner and put the potential winning run on base before recovering by striking out the next three batters to end the game.
Heliot Ramos provided a near-immediate answer to the only run on Snell’s pitching line, slugging a 448-foot solo shot of the top of the batter’s eye to lead off the top of the seventh, but the Giants struggled to do anything else, putting six other men on base and running into four outs.
After dominating for six innings, Snell pitched himself into and out of trouble in the seventh and walked off the mound after his 109th pitch with a ferocious yell. He allowed a one-out single, then issued his first two walks of the afternoon to load the bases. He buried a curveball past Max Schuemann for his 10th strikeout but backed himself into a 3-0 count to the next batter, Daz Cameron.
One more pitch outside the strike zone would have forced in a run — and A’s manager Mark Kotsay was ejected arguing correctly that the second strike of the at-bat was above the letters — but Snell fired five straight fastballs, the last of which Cameron rolled over to second base to end the inning, leaving the bases loaded.
The A’s starter, J.P. Sears, matched Snell and then some, striking out nine and stranding or erasing all six runners who reached base against him.
The Giants struck out 15 times in total and didn’t draw a walk for only the second time this season.
They had one runner thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double. They ran into two more outs trying to reach second on a steal. Another runner, through no fault of his own, was doubled off first when it looked like the A’s infield had lost a pop fly in the blue skies overhead.
All in desperate attempts just to advance a runner into scoring position.
When they finally got one to third base, on Casey Schmitt’s poke through the right side that allowed Matt Chapman to make it 90 feet from home plate with one out in the fifth, they were so desperate not to waste the opportunity that they didn’t trust Mike Yastrzemski to even make a productive out swinging the bat.
Yastrzemski squared to bunt and popped it up into the glove of catcher Shea Langliers. He slammed his pink Crayola themed bat into the ground. Chapman was stranded after Patrick Bailey flew out to end the inning, another hitless showing dropping his batting average since the All-Star break to .116 (11-for-95).
As a team, the Giants had scored 21 runs over their previous eight games — averaging 2.6 — while batting .199. Until Encarnacion came through in the 10th, they hadn’t recorded a single hit this weekend in 11 chances with runners in scoring position, dropping their average in those situations since July 30 to .159 (24-for-151).
They couldn’t afford to waste base runners or give away outs, but neither could they sit back and wait for a big hit that might not arrive.
When Encarnacion lined a slider into left field in the second inning, the 6-foot-5 designated hitter attempted to lug himself to second base, but Miguel Andujar had other ideas. Encarnacion was ruled out when replay review showed his body coming off the bag with Zack Gelof’s glove still on his body.
Yastrzemski was hit by a pitch to begin the next inning and tried to make something happen by taking off for second, but he was thrown out by Langliers, and a promising inning turned into another 1-2-3 frame. Langliers threw out a second runner to end the sixth when Tyler Fitzgerald broke for second after legging out an infield single.
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But Mark Canha swung through the pitch for strike three and Fitzgerald was thrown out at second for an inning-ending strike ’em out, throw ’em out double play. It was the second time the duo teamed up to make two outs at once, after Fitzgerald got caught in between first and second on Canha’s pop up in the fourth.
Third baseman Darell Hernaiz threw his arms up in confusion, but Sears recovered to catch the pop up and quickly fired to first in time to beat Fitzgerald back to the bag.
Notable
At the conclusion of the 56-year history of the Bay Bridge series, the Giants finished with a record of 72-76 and split the four games this season.
Up next
The Giants host the lowly White Sox for three games beginning Monday in one of the few light spots on their remaining schedule. Besides a three-game series against the Marlins next month, all of the other opponents left on the Giants’ schedule own winning records.
