LOS ANGELES — The Giants have already been nearly no-hit. They’ve already rallied for big comebacks. They hit seven home runs in a single game. They’ve had an unlikely walk-off home run.
Nothing was as wacky as Friday’s 7-5 win in extra-innings over the rival Dodgers in Dodger Stadium. And it would take an epic amalgam of outrageousness to top it.
The Giants’ fifth straight victory featured dazzling plays in the field along with a fantastically head-scratching one.
It included a curious in-stadium folly that didn’t cost the Giants but certainly irked them.
There was a no-hitter flirtation by a pitcher who had never stepped on a mound above Double-A and an excruciatingly painful home run trot.
Even the circumstances surrounding the game, with religious groups protesting the Dodgers’ Pride Night shutting down main gates into the stadium, set a bizarre backdrop.
Somehow, some way, the Giants outlasted the Dodgers.
Here are the five most bizarre plays of a bizarre night of the Giants-Dodgers rivalry.
An insane Mookie Betts catch
Mookie Betts has made hundreds of spectacular catches in the outfield. He’s a six-time Gold Glove winner and one of the best athletes in the sport.
But what he did to Joc Pederson in the sixth inning was downright absurd.
To preserve Emmet Sheehan’s no-hit bid, Betts fully extended in right field for an inning-ending diving catch. The ball left Pederson’s bat at 115 mph, registering as the hardest hit ball of the night.
Before Friday, there have only been 40 balls leaguewide hit at 115 mph or harder. Sixteen have cleared fences. Just nine have turned into outs.
Baseball Savant gave Pederson’s batted ball a 21% catch probability. That feels high.
Another Patrick Bailey throw-em-out
In the age of the pitch clock, bigger bases and disengagement limits, stealing is as easy as it has been in the modern era. That hasn’t mattered to Patrick Bailey.
Bailey has cut down six attempted base-stealers in 19 MLB games. His 36.8% caught stealing rate after Friday is now well above the league average of 20%.
But the Dodgers, in a massive spot, decided to test the rookie catcher. They did so with one out and runners on first and second in the bottom of the ninth. The game was tied and star Will Smith was at the plate.
Simply putting on a double steal at that moment, in itself, is pretty wild. Bailey converting the play made it ridiculous.
Bailey’s pop time on the play was 1.46 seconds — an elite transfer for a third-base steal. He flicked an 81.3 mph missile to Casey Schmitt just in time to nab Betts, who has a career 82.3 stolen base success rate.
“I think we learn more and more about Pat Bailey every day,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said before praising the catcher for his extra-innings baserunning (an honorable mention for this list).
At the end of the play, Bailey licked his fingers. Tasty. If Buster Posey’s catch phrase was “ain’t havin’ it,” Bailey’s might have to be “don’t even try me.”
Wilmer’s hefty price for a homer
Head athletic trainer Dave Groeschner and Kapler rushed out from the dugout to check on Wilmer Flores. The veteran had just fouled a ball off the top of his left foot and was in serious pain. It felt the same as a few years ago when Flores fractured his foot, he said.
Flores said he nearly came out of the game, but regrouped after a minute with the help of adrenaline.
Two pitches later, Flores smacked a two-run home run to left field, giving the Giants their first runs of the night.
“He hung a slider there, and I feel like I just threw my hands at it,” Flores said. “Didn’t use my legs at all.”
After rounding the bases gingerly, Flores immediately got subbed out. He’ll get a CT scan on Sunday.
“To hang in there, stay tough, hit a ball that flush in a big moment for us — not surprising with Wilmer, but also admirable,” Kapler said.
If Flores gets bad news and his foot turns out to be severely injured, that would make his home run legendary. Of course, everyone’s hoping that doesn’t become reality.
Even still, crushing a ball 387 feet on one leg is impressive enough.
When the lights go down in the city
In the sixth inning, JD Martinez smacked a double off the wall. This year, the Dodgers have installed strobe lights for every run they score, a fun piece of in-stadium atmosphere.
But on Martinez’s double, the lights flashed on and off during the play. Nobody scored, but it was a shocking sight and Kapler took the field to express his frustrations to the umpiring crew.
When Crawford cut off the throw in from the outfield, he couldn’t see the ball. Kapler called the situation “suboptimal.” Crawford, with a smile, agreed with his skipper’s assessment.
“It definitely affected me catching the ball,” Crawford said. “I lost the ball on the throw in and just kind of guessed where it started out of his hand and where it was going to end up. So yeah, if somebody ended up scoring, which I was talking to the umpire and I think they would’ve sent him back to third. But yeah, whoever’s controlling that up there can’t be doing that, (especially) on a pretty obvious double like that.”
It wasn’t even the first time that the strobe light operator at Dodger Stadium got a bit too excited.
The Little League Play to end all Little League Plays
In what Brandon Crawford called “probably the strangest” play of his 13-year career, the ball switched hands eight times.
Casey Schmitt dropped a pop fly. Jakob Junis picked it up and threw it into right field. Mike Yastrzemski ran it into the infield. He found Crawford by the pitcher’s mound to play quarterback. Thairo Estrada fielded his pitch and chucked home to Patrick Bailey. Junis covered third and finally applied a tag.
It was a hodgepodge of helter-skelter. All the while, Michael Busch could have scored but got confused, tripping up Mookie Betts on the base paths behind him.
This all happened in the span of 33 seconds with one in the 11th inning — three hours and thirty minutes after first pitch. The official ruling for those keeping score (5-1-9-6-4-2-1) is only missing an area code.
“I literally threw it, and I was so shocked that I threw the ball, let alone into right field,” Junis said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever done that before. I was just so shocked that I did it and dumbfounded by what was transpiring that I didn’t even know what was happening behind me.”
Junis made up for his mistake that set the Bad News Bears play in motion by covering third base when he noticed it was vacant after Estrada fired home.
Kapler was mostly speechless when asked about the play postgame. He said he had to watch the replay three or four times before crediting Yastrzemski and Estrada for being under control.
“I felt like once the ball was in Craw’s hands, something good was going to happen,” Kapler added.
Jon Miller called the play a Greek tragedy on the radio broadcast. It was more like a comedy.
