For over 20 years, Sports Illustrated has run a special note in each issue called the “Sign of the Apocalypse” featuring a bizarre, strange or downright unusual event that took place in the sporting world that week.
This week, the editors need to look no further than AT&T Park, where the “Sign of the Apocalypse” is the Giants defeating the fourth-place Padres.
On Saturday afternoon, it took 12 innings, but catcher Nick Hundley finally delivered a walkoff single to plate Kelby Tomlinson and break the Giants’ skid against San Diego.
To even send the game into extra innings, San Francisco closer Sam Dyson needed to survive a ninth-inning encounter with the Giants’ hell-on-earth scenario: Hector Sanchez hitting with a chance to give the Padres the lead in the top of the ninth inning.
Though Sanchez has hit three home runs against his former club in the past four games, Dyson retired Sanchez on a sharply hit grounder to end the inning.
Prior to Saturday’s game, Panda-monium swept through AT&T Park, as a week of rumors, speculation and reports concluded with Pablo Sandoval’s arrival in San Francisco to sign a Minor League contract with his former organization.
A week after being designated for assignment by the Red Sox, Sandoval re-upped with his former team and his presence and return to a city that felt abandoned by the once-beloved “Panda” practically overshadowed another bad baseball game featuring two bad teams.
However, Hundley’s walkoff single in the 12th inning stole the headlines away from Sandoval, and helped the Giants snap a four-game losing streak against the Padres. Prior to Saturday’s game, San Francisco had lost 16 of its last 21 against San Diego, including eight of the 11 matchups the teams had played this season.
“We haven’t played well against the Padres, whether that’s us, or them, you know I think it’s a combination of both,” Hundley said. “You’ve got to give them credit, too. They play hard, they’ve got a lot of young guys who play hard.”
A day after the Giants and Padres played an 11-inning affair that didn’t end until the early minutes of Saturday morning, San Francisco and San Diego squared off again as struggling left-hander Matt Moore squared off with Padres’ righty Luis Perdomo on a beautiful afternoon at China Basin.
For Moore, Saturday’s game offered another opportunity to find a rhythm that has seemingly disappeared this season, as he entered the contest with the highest ERA (5.81) among qualifying starters in the National League.
The left-hander who was acquired in a trade with Tampa Bay last season started the game strong, retiring eight of the first nine hitters he faced before running into trouble in a brutal top half of the fourth inning.
After a Joe Panik RBI single gave San Francisco a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the third, Padres’ first baseman Wil Myers led off the fourth with his second home run in as many days to even the score. Moore had a hard time settling down, as three Padres’ hitters reached on singles before Perdomo roped a bases-clearing triple into right-center field to give San Diego a 4-1 lead.
The triple Perdomo recorded was his third of the season, the most by a Major League pitcher since Dontrelle Willis accomplished the feat back in 2007.
Though Perdomo didn’t score, Moore answered with a run of his own in the bottom half of the inning as the Giants rallied for three runs to even the game at 4-4.
After Orlando Calixte –who was called up to the Majors on Saturday morning– roped a two-out single to plate Hunter Pence, Moore slapped his career-high fourth hit of the season through the left side of the infield to move Calixte into scoring position. A Gorkys Hernandez walk then gave way to Eduardo Nunez, who went the opposite way with a Perdomo fastball to knot the score.
“Without question, how we bounced back there, it was critical,” Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy said. “When you lose a game the way we did last night, you get a day game the next day after going to extra innings, a lot of times the team that gets ahead, the other team has a tendency to get a little flat there but I’m just proud of how they bounced back.”
Both Moore and Perdomo settled down in their final two innings, as each pitcher worked a scoreless fifth and sixth before turning the game over to their respective bullpens. Bochy called upon Albert Suarez to provide relief of Moore, as Suarez was also called up on Saturday morning after the Giants used seven relievers in Friday’s loss.
“He (Suarez) gave us what we needed, a little shot in the arm there in the seventh and eighth,” Bochy said. “He had good stuff, the velo there was good, good breaking stuff. He’s only got 11, 12 innings in the Minor Leagues, three in Sacramento and he looked sharp. I’ve said this a couple of times but I really think we missed him.”
Suarez was effective, throwing two perfect innings of relief before turning the game over to Giants’ closer Sam Dyson, who threw warmup pitches for the fifth consecutive day prior to entering his third game in five days.
Though Giants’ pitchers have faced immense struggles trying to retire Sanchez, Dyson did so for the second straight game to help send the contest to extra innings.
