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Crawford takes advantage of rare pinch-hit opportunity in win

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SAN FRANCISCO -- The timing of Tuesday's moves was coincidental, but also kinda funny. Joc Pederson and Thairo Estrada returned from the Injured List and Michael Conforto, after missing nearly all of the weekend series with a sore heel, was back in the lineup.

No hitter wants to miss a series or even a game at Coors Field, but sometimes it's not up to you.

Brandon Crawford has 15 career homers in Denver, his most in any city but his own, but for the first time in a decade, Crawford has found that health is not enough to guarantee a start every day. He got just one at-bat in the finale, but he took full advantage.

Crawford's pinch-hit double to right tied the game in the ninth and helped the Giants finish off their second sweep of the year. After a 6-4 win over the Rockies, he said he tried to stay ready in the late innings.

"I was given about an inning or so heads up that it might happen depending on the situation and then started kind of getting more locked in and ready from there," he said on NBC Sports Bay Area's postgame show. "It's tough. I haven't been great at pinch-hitting in my career, so coming in there, I thought the first (pitch) might have been a strike and didn't think the second one was. From there, at Coors Field, you try to do too much sometimes and just try to see how far you can hit it or something like that.

"I tried to just stay within myself and make some hard contact and put the ball in play. Fortunately, I did."

Crawford got a low 0-2 curveball from former teammate Pierce Johnson and smoked it into the gap in right-center. Blake Sabol raced around from first to tie the game, and soon the Giants would add two more.

The pinch-hit was just the eighth of Crawford's career, but that shouldn't be too surprising. He has played nearly 1,600 games in orange and black but gotten just 46 pinch-hit at-bats. For the most part since the start of 2012, a day off for Crawford has been a day to rest up -- and maybe come in on defense if the Giants had a late lead. There have been multiple seasons in which he has just one pinch-hit appearance.

Things have changed over the last month, with Casey Schmitt's emergence cutting into Crawford's playing time. Schmitt has slowed down, though. He was 0-for-3 on Thursday, dropping his OBP below .300. In the ninth, manager Gabe Kapler played the platoon advantage and sent his veteran shortstop up to hit for Schmitt.

"My thinking is he has experience against Pierce Johnson. It was a big moment, a big road trip for us, and Casey has been struggling a little bit against right-handed pitching," Kapler said. "I just felt pretty good about Craw there. There was not much more than that, I just felt like it was the right decision."

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The move paid off and the Giants got their second late comeback in as many days. They have now won 11 straight against the Rockies, although this latest sweep came with a little added life. The Giants had their full lineup out there for a whole series for the first time this year, and that had them flying high as they headed back to the airport after a quick and productive trip.

"For the most part, it has looked pretty good," Crawford said of the lineup. "For about five innings yesterday I was a little nervous, but I think we've looked good. It's a strong lineup top to bottom, our bench is deep. I think we look great right now and hopefully we can continue to stay healthy."

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