Martinez Tribune The website of the Martinez Tribune.
BY DANIEL GLUSKOTER
LaMonte Wade Jr’s dramatic game winning ninth inning pinch hit home run helped lead the Giants to a come-from-behind 6-5 win over the A’s Saturday afternoon at the Coliseum.
LaMonte Wade Jr. is greeted at home by Mike Yastrzemski following his two run ninth inning pinch hit home run. It ended up being decisive as the Giants came from behind to defeat the A’s 6-5 at the Coliseum Saturday afternoon.
Oakland had capitalized on a rocky start by Giants ace Kevin Gausman to jump out to a 3-0 first inning lead on the strength of a Sterling Marte RBI double that was followed by a two RBI single by Seth Brown. But A’s starter Sean Manaea was shaky also, allowing a two-run homer to Kris Bryant in the second before exiting the game with two outs in the fifth.
The home run would prove to be a recurring theme for the Giants as they would hit three more on the way to ending the day tied with the Toronto Blue Jays for the major-league lead.
Oakland would extend its lead to 5-2 with the help of a Josh Harrison double in the third and a Sean Murphy single followed by a Tony Kemp double in the fourth.
After Yusmeiro Petit came in to relieve Manaea and get the A’s out of a bases loaded jam in the fifth, the game would settle down until San Francisco started flexing their muscles again in the seventh with back-to-back long balls.
Brandon Belt watches the flight of his seventh inning home run during the Giants 6-5 win over Oakland Saturday afternoon.
With Andrew Chafin on in relief, first Brandon Belt and then Darin Ruf slugged no doubters to close the Giants deficit to 5-4. San Francisco then appeared prepared to take the lead in the eighth after putting the first two men on, but Curt Casali failed to execute a sacrifice bunt, meekly popping out to pitcher Jake Diekman before Brandon Crawford was picked off second to neutralize the threat.
Meanwhile, the A’s bats went to sleep for the last 5 1/3 innings of the game against a quartet of Giants relievers, Setting the stage for Wade’s ninth inning heroics against usually reliable A’s closer Lou Trivino (5-5, 1.99). “We needed to win that game,” Trivino said. “It sucks, quite frankly. We had the lead most of the game and felt we were on a roll. It hurts a little more. I wanted to throw it up in the zone,” Trivino said. “You don’t want to throw a lefty down and in, because they tend to hit that well. But apparently, they also hit 94 [mph] up and in pretty well, too.”
After Buster Posey walked to start the inning, Brandon Belt was walked intentionally, bringing up Wade as a pinch-hitter for Ruf. He would launch a 1-1 fastball from Trevino just inside the right field foul pole for his first career pinch-hit homer, sending a divided crowd of 36,230 back into a fever pitch until Giants stopper Jake McGee came on to pitch a perfect frame in the bottom of the line for his 27th save.
“Before that at-bat, (Giants hitting coaches) Justin Viele and Donnie Ecker were in my ear telling me kind of what areas to look for, what pitches to look for, so I give all credit to them,” Wade said. “Luckily, I was able to run off the plan.”
Matt Olson slides around Giants catcher Curt Casali to score in the third inning of Oakland’s 6-5 loss to San Francisco Saturday afternoon.
The win helped San Francisco maintain its 1.5 game lead over the Dodgers, while the A’s fell another game behind Houston in the standings, dropping to 3.5 back while maintaining a Half game lead over Boston in the race for the AL’s second wild-card spot.
“We don’t expect the Dodgers to go away, but I don’t think we’re going to go away, either,” said Belt after the game.
“You have to be pretty fine against them,” Melvin said. “That’s a good home run-hitting team. When they got some mistakes, they took advantage of them. We’ve had to run our bullpen out there a little bit,” Melvin said. “[The starters] had been keeping our bullpen rested for the better part of a year. With [Chris Bassitt] out, we’re gonna have to get some guys going deeper in games. It hasn’t happened the first two games here, so we’re looking for a longer outing out of Frankie.”
With San Francisco now holding a 3–2 advantage in the Bay Bridge series, the two teams will meet for a final time Sunday afternoon with Logan Webb (7-3, 2.92) scheduled to take the mound for the Giants against Oakland’s Frankie Montas (9-9, 4.04).
GAME NOTES:
The Giants extended their San Francisco franchise record of having the best record in the NL to 98 consecutive days, six days short of the New York Giants 104 in their World Series winning year of 1954.
San Francisco has now won 18 of their last 25 games and is 22-12 since the All-Star break.
The A’s Starling Marte leads the majors in both batting average and steals since the break.
The Giants ninth inning rally snapped Trivino’s streak of converting his last 14 save opportunities.
Oakland dropped to 18-21 in one-run games.
