Joe Nathan's first Giants win since 2003 couldn't have been bigger
When the clock strikes midnight and there’s still baseball going on, brace yourself for something weird. That’s especially true in September, when rosters have expanded and managers really love to manage.
For the San Francisco Giants, the weird developed into something good on Friday night. They outlasted the Diamondbacks, 7-6, in a 12-inning, five-hour game that had pitchers coming out of the woodwork.
In total, 20 different pitchers were used. After using nine pitchers in a nine-inning loss on Wednesday, Giants manager Bruce Bochy limited himself to eight here. It was his sixth pitcher that threw perhaps the most important inning of the Giants season. We’re speaking of 41-year-old Joe Nathan, who was making his third appearance with San Francisco this season. Nathan, of course, started his career with the Giants, but was traded to the Minnesota Twins nearly 13 years ago.
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After Santiago Casilla blew his eighth save in the 10th inning, Bochy turned to Nathan with the game still tied in the 11th. Nathan started in trouble, allowing a leadoff single to Brandon Drury. Drury would eventually move around to third base on a wild pitch and fly out, but Nathan left him stranded there with a strikeout and another fly out.
It was an 18-pitch struggle that felt like it took 18 hours, but that was the general feeling of this entire game. In the boxscore though, it only shows a scoreless inning and a win, which was credited to Nathan after San Francisco scored one in the 12th. The win was Nathan’s first in a Giants uniform since Sept. 27, 2003.
We can’t ignore the 12th inning either, because that’s where the real weirdness happened. The Giants ended up taking the lead on Kelby Tomlinson’s RBI single. That led to a bottom half of the inning that would have made Joe Maddon proud if he was still awake. That’s because Bochy shuttled reliever Cory Guerrin between the pitcher’s mound and left field so he wouldn’t have to burn another pitcher.
Guerin struck out Chris Owings to begin the inning. Then he moved to left while Javier Lopez walked Jake Lamb. Then he returned to the mound and walked Paul Goldschmidt before retiring Welington Castillo and Yasmany Tomas to end it. It was a unique path to his third save this season, but the details aren’t nearly as important to San Francisco as the result.
The Giants had an opportunity to gain a game on the Los Angeles Dodgers, which they did. They’re now four games back in the NL West. They also needed this win to maintain a half-game lead on the Mets and a full-game lead on the Cardinals in the wild card picture. Mission accomplished there too.
On the surface, it doesn’t sound like a big deal. Knowing that the Giants entered this game with an MLB-worst 16-29 record since the All-Star break really highlights the importance of the win. Another loss under these circumstances would have felt like more than a one-game setback.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at bigleaguestew@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
