Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports
Pablo Sandoval has seen the bad times. He flamed out notoriously quickly with the Red Sox, returning to San Francisco changed.
If anyone knows how to learn from failure, it’s the Giants infielder. So in a game in which he had grounded into a pair of double plays, made an error in the ninth inning that could have burned the team, and then grounded out with the bases loaded in the 10th, Sandoval stepped into his 13th-inning at-bat with a little pep-talk.
“After that I think to myself, you better hit it now,” Sandoval said. “Focus, don’t lose the aggressiveness.”
“Those can be a little downer for a player. Cause them to even lose a little confidence,” Bruce Bochy said after Sandoval’s extra-inning ground out. “But not with Pablo.”
Not with Pablo, who, batting lefty, launched the first pitch he saw from Brad Brach, a 92-mph fastball, just over the left-field wall to make the Giants 5-4 winners over the Cubs on Tuesday at Oracle Park.
“I got a good pitch,” said Sandoval, who has struggled majorly this month and finished the day 1-for-6. “… Something I could drive out.”
It was much-needed. Sandoval’s first at-bat resulted in a ground-ball double play that erased a Buster Posey single. His next four at-bats resulted in ground balls, too, including an eighth-inning double play that wasted a Brandon Belt walk. He stepped up with a chance to win it in the 10th, but another ground ball cost him.
He finally got the ball in the air for a team that moved two games out of a wild-card spot.
“Reminds me of the 2014 team,” Sandoval said. “The run we’re on right now is unbelievable. We never give up, we fight, every at-bat, every inning.”