It was the craziest thing Joey Bart has ever been a part of.
Alex Wood broke out his special bottle of bourbon — Elijah Craig aged 23 years — for the occasion.
A grinning Mike Yastrzemski wrly asked reporters in the Giants’ clubhouse: “You need me?”
What they’d just witnessed — and contributed to — was baseball nirvana. They spoke with a combination of speechlessness and amazement.
“It really is magic,” Bart said.
“I still don’t believe it,” Wood giggled.
“Those are the things that you dream about when you’re a kid playing in the backyard,” Yastrzemski said.
The pig-pile at home plate was over, but the residue from an impossible ninth inning remained. Yastrzemski’s game-winning grand slam, Bart’s tone-setting bomb, Darin Ruf’s solo shot, and Austin Slater’s bold steal propelled the Giants to one of the most memorable wins, 8-5 over Milwaukee, in franchise history.
The perfect confluence of leadership, power hitting, and baseball voodoo arrived at the perfect time for the Giants. An unprecedented display of damage against Josh Hader — arguably the sport’s best closer for the past five years — led to a six-run ninth inning after all hope was lost.
By the sixth inning, the Giants were shot. The defensive issues that have plagued them all season reared and allowed Milwaukee to take a 5-2 lead.
Even down just three runs, heads sagged in the home dugout.
“We weren’t out of the game, but it kind of felt like it for a little bit,” Yastrzemski said. “It was just kind of one of those things where I think we fell into the ‘here we go again.’”
But Bart, the rookie catcher, wasn’t ready to give up. He remembers turning to Curt Casali and saying we’ve got to keep going, it’s not over, we’ve got to keep fighting. The 25-year-old doesn’t think it’s necessarily his place to speak up and give a rousing speech, and he didn’t.
Apparently his voice carried.
“It was actually really refreshing,” Yastrzemski said of Bart’s demeanor. “Felt like the energy was sucked out of the dugout. I think it just kind of grinded Joey’s gears. He was just a little fired up that there wasn’t really any positive energy at the time. And it was really good to hear and really cool to see him get fired up. It wasn’t towards anyone, it wasn’t aggressive, he was just kind of fed up.”
Bart’s fire didn’t yield immediate results. The Giants went scoreless in the sixth, seventh and eighth.
When Hader — the supercloser with a 2.73 ERA — entered, the Brewers had a 96.2% win probability, per Baseball Savant.
“A lot of people were probably convinced it was probably over,” Bart said. “But it’s like, you know what, why not? Why not go in there and fight it? And grind something out. See what we can do.”
It wasn’t over. Bart made sure of it. He turned on an inside Hader fastball — the type of pitch that gave him the most trouble during his early-season struggles — and sent it into the left field seats at 107.9 mph. It was the hardest-hit ball of the game.
Ruf followed with a towering shot of his own to cut Milwaukee’s lead to 5-4. Was this actually happening?
Slater slashed a single to extend the rally, but he nearly ended it just as quickly. Hader picked him off first base, but somehow Slater dove head-first into second safely.
Yermín Mercedes and Thairo Estrada kept the line moving with at-bats that will understandably get lost in history but meant as much as any.
Finally, Yastrzemski won it with a laser into center. He said he was just trying to loft a ball into the outfield to score the tying run. What jolted off his bat was much, much more. He trotted around the bases and met his teammates, who were waiting for him at home with water bottles and jumping hugs.
The Giants became the first team to hit three home runs in an inning, including a walkoff grand slam. It was their first walk-off slam since Bobby Bonds in 1973; every other team has hit one in the past 15 years. It was their first walk-off home run in front of Oracle Park fans since Jaylin Davis in 2019 — a drought that lasted through the pandemic and their historic 107-win season.
The result only gets more unfathomable with more context.
Hader had never allowed three home runs in a game before — not in any of his 264 appearances prior to Friday. He allowed three home runs in the entire 2021 season. His previous career-high for runs allowed was four.
The four-time All-Star never had an outing as nightmarish as Friday night, and he probably won’t have one like it ever again.
Yastrzemski, the hero, almost wasn’t in the lineup on Friday. He and Kapler had a discussion pregame about whether he felt more comfortable facing Brandon Woodruff or Eric Lauer — Saturday’s expected starter. Yastrzemski had struck out in four of his six career at-bats against Woodruff, but the two decided to start him in right field anyway.
“We’re certainly glad we made that decision,” Kapler said postgame.
Bart, the spark plug, was in Sacramento three weeks ago as part of a mental and physical reset. He’d struck out in nearly half his plate appearances to start the season. Only an injury to Curt Casali paved a path for his return to the Giants.
Since then, the catcher is 7-for-22 (.318) with two homers and two doubles . Kapler said Bart still has a “long way to go,” but it would be shocking if the rookie spent much more time in Sacramento after this stretch.
Ruf, who hadn’t hit a home run since June 22, has played his worst season since 2016 — before he made a hajj to Korea to rediscover his power.
But the Giants never lost faith in Ruf. Or Bart. Or themselves, even when it seemed reasonable to do so on Friday.
Yet faith is belief without evidence. The Giants sure supplied some reasons to believe in the ninth.