Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
This time, Ron Wotus’ wave worked out.
This time, the Giants were celebrating and not shocked.
This time, the Giants recorded their 50th win of the season the same way they had recorded so many of the first 49: with the other guys, riding Steven Duggar, Curt Casali and LaMonte Wade Jr. to victory.
The Giants somehow escaped with a 6-5, 10-inning win at Oracle Park and have taken the Bay Bridge Series before Sunday has even arrived.
It was a single from Duggar, who reached base four times in five tries, that drove in ghostrunner Brandon Crawford to tie up the game in the 10th. It was Casali, who appeared to have injured his back earlier in the game and had struck out four times, lining a double to left to send in Duggar and walk off in style.
The Giants (50-26) are 4.5 up on the Dodgers and were five above the Padres before San Diego had finished play Saturday night.
It appeared the Giants had won in regulation, when Crawford lined a bottom-of-the-ninth single with Wade at second. But an aggressive Wotus waved Wade in because Tony Kemp’s arm in left is a left fielder’s arm. Kemp did not throw home but to third, and Matt Chapman turned the relay beautifully, cutting Wade down at the plate easily.
The A’s small-balled a run in the 10th off Jake McGee, a ground ball sending the ghost runner to third and Chapman’s long sacrifice knocking him in. The Giants did them one better.
The Giants got a mostly solid start from Alex Wood and a couple big swings that brought them back from a two-run deficit in the seventh. They recovered after Zack Littell surrendered a two-run shot to Chapman, who sent it over the right-field wall, and the opened-up ducts in right field apparently could not knock balls down enough for Giants pitching.
The Giants got one back in the seventh, when Wilmer Flores’ single drove in Wade, and another in the eighth, when Donovan Solano’s dramatic home run tied it up.
Perhaps the most fun moment of the game arrived in the seventh, when Sergio Romo left the game after two outs and one walk and was checked for substances, and he kept his pants on this time. He then exited to the dugout and got a well-deserved nice round of applause from Giants and A’s fans alike.
Before Solano’s blast, the biggest hit of the night for the Giants came in the fifth, and of course it was from Brandon Belt’s replacement. That’s just the way this season has gone, right?
Wade, who already had the two hardest-hit balls of the game for the Giants but nothing to show for it, stepped into a Frankie Montas fastball and blistered it to right for his fifth home run in 28 games with San Francisco. He was down 0-2 in the count and had fouled off three straight pitches, including two splitters, then got the fastball on the inside of the plate.
Wood had an effective enough outing if a different one. He has been a different pitcher this month and has admitted it is an adjustment during the league-wide crackdown that no longer quietly allows substances, even sunscreen, to accompany a pitcher on the mound. He has struggled with his grip, but he found another route toward getting batters out.
His slider had been his best and go-to pitch all year, but it has been shoved back in place of his two-seam fastball. He leaned heavily upon that sinker in going 5 1/3 innings while allowing two runs (one earned) on four hits and a walk and striking out eight. He entered play with an 8.50 ERA in the four starts this month, yet is getting out of June with a 3.91 ERA in total.
His fastball got ahead in counts and his changeup finished a few batters off; he induced 14 swings and misses, six each on his fastball and changeup.
Yet, there was still evidence he struggled for a grip. In the third, a run scored after he hit Ramon Laureano in the foot with a slider that kept sliding and he airmailed a wild pitch. He was checked for substances after the inning, which was necessary by rule but seemed unnecessary.
The A’s got another in the sixth after Wood had left. He exited with runners on the corners, and Dominic Leone, pitching with a drawn-in infield behind him, watched Mitch Moreland ground a single to tie the game at 2. Leone escaped without further damage by getting Elvis Andrus to ground out, and Leone let out of a roar — and then had to report to the umpires to get checked.