Brandon Crawford just accomplished something on a baseball field that Barry Bonds, Ted Williams — heck even the greatest Giant of all-time, Willie Mays — would’ve never dreamed about.
The San Francisco Giants shortstop clubbed seven hits against the Marlins, knocking in the game-winning RBI in the 14th inning. This team’s dynasty started in 2010, and Monday’s 8-7 win in Miami really might be the most memorable regular season win in that seven season span.
A seven-hit performance has happened just five times in MLB history, and the feat has stood by itself since 1975, when Pittsburgh Pirate Rennie Stennett shelled the Cubs. That’s 41 years ago — Bruce Bochy was a spry 20-year-old. To put that number into further perspective, there have been 14 perfect games pitched since the last seven-hit game. The last player in the National League to smack seven hits before Stennett? Wilbert Robertson in 1892. Benjamin Harrison was president and the country was less than 30 years removed from the Civil War.
The Giants’ PR staff can start mailing Crawford’s jersey, bat and maybe even a piece of that shaggy hair to Cooperstown. This is a baseball feat some of us will never see again in our lifetimes. How about this: Crawford raised his average from .265 to .278 in the game. This is August, not April.
His hits went as follows: an infield single in the second, a double to right in the fourth, a single to right in the seventh (keeping a rally alive), a single to right in the eighth, a single to center in the 11th, a triple to right in the 13th, and then a single to center in the 14th, scoring Brand Belt.
Crawford did not do this all on his lonesome. The bullpen — Derek Law, Hunter Strickland, Santiago Casilla and George Kontos — slammed the door shut, on the road, nonetheless.
But this was a lynchpin performance from a 29-year-old, who often goes undervalued on the list of Giants’ key players. This is the kind of win that can not only snap the cloudy funk San Francisco has been stuck in since the All-Star break; this could be the turning point in the entire season. With Bochy watching from a local Miami hospital, with the fan base still moping about trading Matt Duffy, with three new players still adjusting to roles, and with the Giants down 5-1 heading into the 7th inning, this loss would’ve stung. It would’ve kept pouring salt on an open wound.
Instead, Crawford turned in a work of art, a hitting masterpiece that will be talked about 41 years from now — and then some.