It took another Darin Ruf home run, Alex Cobb’s best start in a Giants uniform and a bases-loaded balk for the Giants to beat Milwaukee for a second straight night.
They’ll take it.
Dominic Leone yelled and pumped his right fist after getting Kolten Wong to strike out looking to end the game. Leone worked around a leadoff single and errant pickoff throw in the ninth to hold Milwaukee at one run. In front of a sellout crowd, the Giants (47-43) escaped with a 2-1 win.
Through five innings, each team earned just two base runners. Each pushed just one into scoring position. Both Cobb and Eric Lauer worked efficiently and effectively.
The story of Cobb’s season has been getting snake-bit by balls in play that either find gloves between defenders or skip off leather and limbs.
But maybe this time, Cobb could avoid that outcome. Evan Longoria, in his first game back from the injured list, picked Cobb up in the fifth by making a tough play behind the third base bag, skipping a throw to a ready Darin Ruf at first to end the inning.
Longoria and Thairo Estrada have each become even more indispensable — particularly in the field — than they previously were, now that Brandon Crawford is once again hitting the injured list.
With two outs in the sixth, Ruf broke the stalemate. For the second game in a row, he sent a towering fly ball into the left field bleachers, where on Saturday droves of fans donned souvenir Hawaiian shirts. For a moment, the luau chill luau turned into Project X.
Lauer tried to go upstairs with a fastball, but the first baseman was waiting for it. Ruf’s homer left his bat at 100.1 mph and traveled 377 feet to ignite the crowd. With his eighth and ninth of the year coming this weekend, it’s possible the slugger has turned a corner.
Ruf’s dinger put the Giants ahead, and Cobb made the lead stick. In his first seventh inning of the season, the righty fanned Andrew McCutchen before rolling over both Kolten Wong and Jace Peterson for a 1-2-3 frame.
Cobb left the seventh inning with a pitch count of 85. Jakob Junis had been activated to provide a reprieve to an overtaxed bullpen, but the way Cobb was pitching, that looked unnecessary.
Then in the eighth, that live-ball misfortune that’s burned Cobb all year returned. After seven clean innings, it was due.
Hunter Renfroe launched a fly ball to deep center field, twisting Austin Slater around. The center fielder wasn’t sure which shoulder to open up and retreat to, and never committed to one until it was too late. Then Mike Yastrzemski, inserted into the game that inning for his glove, bobbled the ball while backing up Slater, which allowed Renfroe to trot into third.
It was a tough play for Slater, no doubt, but one most big-league center fielders should make.
Renfroe then scored on a sacrifice fly. It was a preventable run in a season full of them for Cobb, who left to a deserved standing ovation.
Bart, the catalyst and fiery leader from the previous night, caught Jonathan Davis trying to steal third to end the eighth inning after John Brebbia entered. Longoria completed the nifty strike-em-out, throw-em-out with an athletic tag.
Bart’s throw sparked a rally in the eighth that brought Yastrzemski to the plate with the bases loaded. Replays from his walk-off grand slam — the first in Giants history since 1973 — flashed on Oracle Park’s big screen. Over 41,000 fans rose to their feet.
Yastrzemski didn’t blast another epic shot, but the go-ahead run did cross. Jandel Gustave’s balk scored Wilmer Flores from third, and Leone did just enough to earn the save.
It didn’t have quite the same drama of Friday night’s epic walk-off, but then again, what could?