Chris Mezzavilla
The Giants’ injury list is more like an injury scroll. Mike Yastrzemski (thumb) and Logan Webb (shoulder), added to the jumble before Thursday’s game, make 14 on the IL at this moment.
Missing from the lineup are Yastrzemski, Tommy La Stella, Brandon Belt and Darin Ruf. Also out of action is Evan Longoria, whose side soreness has kept him glued to the bench since Monday, even if his name is not found on the IL.
Next man up goes the refrain, and it’s a true one, as evidenced by the emergences of guys like LaMonte Wade Jr. and Steven Duggar. But the two most pivotal Giants have been healthy — or at least healthy enough — all year, and one was the best player on the field Thursday.
Brandon Crawford made several outstanding plays defensively and the loudest one offensively, his three-run home run in the fifth inning the go-ahead blast in a 7-2 Giants win over the Cubs at Oracle Park in front of 10,737. He and Buster Posey are the most integral parts of a lineup that can match up and platoon elsewhere, but it would be a different team without either.
The red-hot Cubs had won nine of 10 before they ran into a Giants club that now has won seven of nine. The Giants (35-21) moved 1.5 games up on the Padres for the moment at least — San Diego was midgame as of publication — and two games up of the idle Dodgers.
"HE HAS CRUSHED THIS ONE! WAY BACK THERE… GOODBYE!!!"
Jon Miller with the call ??? pic.twitter.com/nE3voRluGZ
— KNBR (@KNBR) June 4, 2021
The best-in-the-majors Giants are doing what was previously unthinkable in large part because their veterans are doing what was previously unthinkable: reaching a level that is not just a throwback to their primes, but surpassing them.
Crawford’s 12th homer of the season came in his 49th game; he totaled 11 in 147 games in 2019. His career high is 21, and he’s on pace to break 30 at 34 years old. A swing that was retooled before the 2020 season is showing the new-age power awakening and has unlocked an aspect of his game that he did not have a key for.
A to-be free agent, this campaign was supposed to be Crawford’s farewell, a Bay Area native waving for one long goodbye as Farhan Zaidi & Co. find his big-money replacement. And yet, let’s take a look at baseball’s best qualifying shortstops this year by OPS:
1. Xander Bogaerts, .910
2. Brandon Crawford, .873
3. Trea Turner, .851
4. Carlos Correa, .819
5. Javier Baez, .797
Baez, though behind Correa and Trevor Story on many wishlists, may have been a curiosity to the Giants before his pronounced whiffing problems this year and Crawford’s surge. Baez, the Cubs’ shortstop, also bobbled a Mike Tauchman ground ball in the fourth that preceded an opposite-field, RBI double by Anthony DeSclafani — yep, the Giants’ starter, who snapped an 0-for-40 streak that dated back to 2019 and tied the game in the fourth.
DeSclafani doubles off the wall to tie it up in the 4th
— KNBR (@KNBR) June 4, 2021
Crawford’s defense was better.
There was the third-inning roller from Kris Bryant, which was not hit well but also not tapped. Crawford charged and barehanded anyway, appearing to palm it — and even without a grip, he made a nice throw over to throw Bryant out.
There was the Willson Contreras shot into the shortstop hole in the fourth, in which Crawford circled it so he wouldn’t need to backhand and then threw across his body.
There was the fifth-inning Eric Sogard ground ball to Donovan Solano, whose throw was not perfect to Crawford at second, and yet he danced his way to a double play by smoothly tapping the bag and throwing over to first.
And then there was an offensive tour de force that extended past his home run, which came in the fifth after Chicago brought in southpaw Rex Brothers, whom Crawford has owned, to retire him. If there has been a hole in Crawford’s game, it has come against lefties, against whom he is 7-for-47 this season. And yet, four are home runs, this one a moon shot that went an estimated 422 feet over the right-center field wall, clearing the Triples Alley fence. Crawford was on base in three of his four plate appearances and knocked in four.
Crawford did not do everything — DeSclafani and the Giants’ offense did a nice job, too — but he did a whole lot.
DeSclafani bounced back nicely after one disaster and one middling effort against the Dodgers. He went six innings and allowed two runs on four hits, inducing plenty of weak contact to mostly quiet the Cubs’ solid offense. The average exit velocity against him was 78.9 mph, and the only blow a third-inning, two-run shot to Joc Pederson that splashed into the Cove.
Jarlin Garcia, who has now thrown seven consecutive scoreless innings, was excellent for two innings behind him and Zack Littell finished it off.
The Giants added a cushion in the seventh, when Solano and Duggar had back-to-back RBI singles. But they didn’t need it.
They don’t need much in a season in which injury has claimed so many. But they need Posey, and they need Crawford.