A day after Marlon Byrd made a legitimate stride towards proving his worth to his new team, San Francisco Giants starter Mike Leake was rewarded the opportunity to replicate his teammate’s success on the mound. Due to a hamstring injury, he missed multiple starts, but in the one start he did make for the Giants he gave up only two runs through 6.1 innings pitched.
Slated to pitch for the opposition was their All-Star right-hander Gerrit Cole, a man that started the year as a dominant ace, though he has struggled lately. With his ERA still formidable at 2.61, he hoped to bounce back after a couple of starts in which he ended up on the losing side of the ledger.
The top half of the first inning commenced with a strikeout from Nori Aoki and a ground ball from Matt Duffy. Brandon Belt followed with a walk, but the inning fell short of anything exciting as Buster Posey flew out to Andrew McCutchen in center. Leake struck out a pair in the bottom of the first, as he mixed up the movement of his fastball utilizing a four-seamer, sinker and cutter to keep Starling Marte and Andrew McCutchen off balance. It was essential for Leake to get off to a quick start if he hoped to fabricate a game that would manifest to Giant fans what they could expect moving forward.
The second inning was eerily reminiscent of the first as no hits or runs came for the visiting Giants. Brandon Crawford crushed a ball deep the other way, but Marte leaped up over the short porch in left to rob him of his 20th home run that has been eluding him for quite some time. The Pirates also struggled to culminate any offense as Leake induced three groundouts to escape the frame with the game locked in a 0-0 tie. To this point number 13 was demonstrating no sign of favoring his hamstring on the mound as he had yet to allow a single Pirate hitter to reach base.
Like the previous inning, Gerrit Cole breezed through his opposition with a three up, three down third inning. Cole picked up his second punch out of the night, and was set up to face the heart of the order in the fourth starting with Matt Duffy. Leake continued to fly through the Pirates order with a shutdown inning of his own. With three innings down, he had retired all nine hitters he faced and was putting together a strong outing in his return.
Finally, with two outs in the top of the fourth, Buster Posey smacked the first hit of the ball game on the first pitch he saw to left. Hoping to build off his impressive debut, Byrd approached the plate with Cole in the stretch for the first time in the ball game. Although he saw four fastballs in the at-bat, Byrd wasn’t able to extend the inning as he rolled over a ground ball to Neil Walker at second base. Following two quick outs via a strikeout from Gregory Polanco and a ground out from Marte, McCutchen walked for the first base runner against Mike Leake. The speedy center fielder took off towards second, but was thrown out by Posey to eradicate the base runner. In 2015, McCutchen’s stolen base numbers have dropped pretty substantially from 18 swiped bags in 2014 to only six thus far this year.
The Giants got another runner on base due to a walk to Gregor Blanco, who advanced all the way to third after a stolen base and throwing error from the catcher Chris Stewart. To end his dry spell at the plate, Ehire Adrianza drove in Blanco on a bloop single in between third and short. Cole bounced back to pick up the second out of the inning by striking out Leake, and finished the inning on a fly ball provided by leadoff man Aoki. The Pirates came back with a run of their own as rookie infielder Jung Ho Kang homered for their first hit of the ball game. Shocked by allowing his first hit and run of the ballgame, Leake struck back hard with a three-pitch strikeout to Walker. It took him a total of eight pitches to get recently activated Josh Harrison to fly out to right, but only three to Alvarez to ground out and complete his first rough inning.
The fifth inning looked like it had the makings of a chance to score for the Giants as Duffy led off with a single and stole second to get into scoring position. After a Belt fly out, Posey reached base on a failed fielder’s choice to set up hot hitters Byrd and Crawford perfectly. Both failed to get the run across because both were unable to even put the ball in play for a pair of K’s to add to Cole’s stat line. Beginning to settle in again, Leake got back into a groove with another inning in which all three batters he faced failed to put together a successful plate appearance. Heading into the seventh the score remained stagnant with a 1-1 tie.
Again to start an inning, Blanco walked and got into scoring position following a wild pitch and sacrifice from Adrianza. Kelby Tomlinson was rewarded with a pinch hit situation, but lined out on a hard hit ball. Red hot Aoki was due up next, though he to couldn’t come through as he grounded out to strand Blanco.
Leake’s night finally came to an end in the seventh when Hunter Strickland, the young hard throwing right hander, relieved him. The inning got kicked off with a double from Marte to put him in an immediate position to score. McCutchen put a good swing on a 98 MPH fastball, but hit the ball directly to Crawford for a lineout. During Kang’s at-bat, Marte got in a rundown trying to swipe third. Strickland fired the ball to Duffy who put down the tag to clear the bases. Strickland competes the best on the mound when he is able to locate his pitches low in the zone, but every once in a while he has a tendency to serve up a pitch the hitters can drive a long way with how hard he’s throwing. Unfortunately, Strickland’s velocity came back to bite him again as he left a fastball up for Kang who crushed it 426 feet for his second home run of the game.
Entering the game two rookie of the year candidates, Matt Duffy and Jung Ho Kang, were tied at 10 homers a piece, but after two solo shots from Kang his tally was up to 12 to break the tie. His swing of the bat also broke the tie ball game to put the Pirates up 2-1.
A couple of lineup changes came before the start of the eighth for the Pirates, including Joakim Soria coming into pitch and Sean Rodriguez replacing Alvarez at first. Soria got off to a shaky start by walking Duffy and allowing an infield hit to Belt. With slugger Posey up next, it seemed things were set up well for the Orange and Black. Just about the worst possible outcome came of the at-bat though as Posey hit into a double play. Luckily, a wild pitch from Soria ended up scoring Duffy from third to once again tie the game. To finish the inning Byrd was set down on strikes for his third strikeout of the day. For the bottom half, George Kontos entered the ball game. He put together a quick inning with a strikeout and two fly outs.
The Pirates also had a new pitcher come in to the game in the form of closer Mark Melancon. Like Kontos, he commanded a quick inning. Three groundouts from Crawford, Blanco and Adrianza wrapped up the top half. Bruce Bochy decided to put his faith in Kontos as he left him out for another inning in an attempt to send the game into extra innings. The first two outs came easy with a pair of strikeouts; however, with two strikes to Marte, the entire dynamic of the game shifted. On a 1-2 count Starling Marte hit a walk-off home run to shock Kontos and the Giants.
All three of the Pirate runs came via solo shots, but overall they managed only four hits total. In the end, Mike Leake's impressive return went to waste as the bullpen couldn't hold off the formidable Pirate lineup. The offense on the other hand didn't help either. The Giants also had four hits, but all were singles. Credit should be given to Cole as he pitched a great game and rose to the occasion against Leake. Looking to bounce back, the Giants send Ryan Vogelsong to the mound on Sunday to compete against left-hander Francisco Liriano.