The Giants and Mets entered Tuesday night’s doubleheader in Queens as two of the best teams in baseball so far.
They each spent Monday’s rainout sitting on seven wins, behind only the Dodgers. San Francisco’s run differential of +23 trailed only that of the Mets (+26) and the Dodgers (+30).
The two clubs matched up as expected, exchanging early leads and taking a 4-4 game into extra innings. The game had turned on its axis in the bottom of the fifth, when Alex Cobb exited early with a right groin injury. SF’s 4-1 lead quickly turned into a stalemate.
From the sixth inning on, neither team could gain an inch. Even when the Giants thought they had the go-ahead run in the 10th inning, replay review showed first baseman Pete Alonso miraculously kept his cleat just barely on the bag. San Francisco was half a shoe size away from taking the lead.
Then Francisco Lindor knocked the game-winning single off Jarlin García in the bottom half of the 10th. Lindor’s walk-off came in an 0-2 count and sent the Giants (7-3) back to the visitor’s clubhouse to refresh with a 5-4 loss.
San Francisco was first tasked with getting to Tylor Megill, who began the year with two shutout starts over 10.1 innings. Then on Tuesday he retired the first three Giants in order with five pitches.
And to support Megill, the Mets stole a run in the first inning. Joey Bart had trouble keeping Alex Cobb’s splitters in front of him, allowing speedster Starling Marte to swipe second, advance to third and score on a wild pitch.
But Megill wasn’t going to mow down offenses forever. Joc Pederson drilled a 1-0 changeup 421 feet to dead center for a game-tying solo home run. It was Pederson’s third home run in the past five games, although the first came off position player Wil Myers.
Shortly after Pederson dabbed on his way back to the visitor’s dugout, the Giants took the lead by manufacturing another run. Thairo Estrada and Steven Duggar each singled and Jason Vosler — recalled from Sacramento for a string of right-handed opposing starters upcoming — drove in Estrada by finding a gap in the Mets’ shifted infield.
Vosler, a West Nyack, NY native who went to high school in New Jersey, reached base in his first two at-bats of the year in front of local friends and family.
The Giants got to Megill again in the third inning when Mike Yastrzemski and Brandon Belt got on to start the frame. Brandon Crawford later collected his second and third RBI by sending a 1-2 fastball over the plate back up the middle to give SF a 4-1 lead.
Singles left Giants bats with exit velocities of 75, 87.5, 88.4 and 89.7 mph. SF was hitting ‘em where they ain’t.
For four innings, the similar soft contact Megill allowed that turned into Giants singles often died in the Giants’ infield for Cobb. But then New York also made their own luck, turning a swinging bunt, dribbler off third base and a single down the right field line into three hits and two runs.
That’s when Cobb, again sitting at 95 mph on his fastball, exited with what the team later announced was a right groin injury. He shook his right leg after Jeff McNeil’s two-RBI double and left after a brief chat with athletic trainer Dave Groeschner and manager Gabe Kapler. Earlier in the inning, he’d sprinted to first to cover on a double play opportunity. He also may have tweaked something running off the mound after McNeil’s double.
Dominic Leone replaced Cobb and inherited a runner on second. He couldn’t hold New York, allowing a game-tying double to Francisco Lindor.
Cobb’s 4.1 innings was the shortest start of the season for a Giants arm so far. Three of his four runs allowed were earned, ending SF’s streak of starts without allowing more than two earned at nine.
The last time Cobb strained his groin, he hit the 10-day injured list. But that led eventually to hip surgery, which ended his 2019 season after just three starts. Cobb’s injury history includes that surgery, Tommy John surgery, a procedure to remove a blood clot and a concussion.
After Cobb left and Leone allowed his runner to come around, New York and San Francisco traded zeroes in the sixth and seventh innings.
The Giants squandered a prime scoring chance in the eighth, when Vosler struck out with two runners in scoring position. Then they came up empty again in the ninth against Mets closer Edwin Díaz. Camilo Doval matched Díaz; despite throwing 10 of his first 14 pitches for balls, Doval recovered to strand runners at second and third with two backwards Ks.
In the 10th, San Francisco threatened again with men on the corner — including the automatic runner who started at second. An errant throw by Lindor with two outs pulled Pete Alonso off the bag, which would have given the Giants the go-ahead run if the call on the field stood. But Alonso spectacularly kept his foot on the corner of first base just long enough to retire a hustling Estrada.
The bottom half was García’s, but Lindor quickly made it his own by lining a walk-off single into center. Just moments before, the star shortstop was inches away from a game-changing blunder. All was forgotten.
After squandering their 4-1 lead, the Giants sold out by using all of their best high-leverage arms — Leone, Doval, García, Tyler Rogers, and Jake McGee — to try to recover. The approach didn’t pan out, and now even more pressure’s on Game 2 starter Logan Webb, who’s putting his 24-game unbeaten streak on the line against Max Scherzer soon.