OAKLAND -- The final Bay Bridge Series matchup drew 32,727 fans to the Coliseum on Sunday. A raucous crowd was treated to free baseball, and the half that came to cheer on the Giants left with a much-needed victory.
Jerar Encarnación hit a two-run homer to center on the first pitch of the 10th inning, and Michael Conforto followed with his own blast as the Giants pulled away in extras for a 4-2 win. They ended up with a weekend and season series split with the Oakland Athletics, who wouldn't go down quietly.
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An error by Brett Wisely scored a run immediately in the bottom of the 10th, and the A's loaded the bases on a walk and hard single to left. But Ryan Walker, pitching a second inning, froze JJ Bleday with a sinker and then whiffed Miguel Andujar with one of his nastiest sliders of the season. On his 35th pitch, Walker struck out Shean Langeliers to clinch the win.
The A's took a 2-0 shutout on Saturday, and for most of Sunday's game, the offenses were similarly stuck in the mud. Lefties Blake Snell and JP Sears each pitched well over seven-plus innings, with Snell giving up just an RBI single and Sears allowing a long solo bomb to Heliot Ramos.
Blake Show
San Francisco Giants
Snell had his usual no-hit stuff early, but the A's pushed a run across in the sixth and then loaded the bases on a single and two walks with one out in the seventh. Snell simply dialed it up a notch, getting a strikeout and grounder to second -- after falling behind 3-0 -- to get out of the jam. With three runners stranded and the score still tied, Snell pumped his fist and screamed as he walked off the mound.
The strikeout in the seventh gave Snell double-digits for the fourth time in five starts. He has 55 strikeouts during that span, the most by any MLB pitcher over a five-start stretch this season and most in franchise history. John Montefusco held the previous record with 54 strikeouts over five consecutive starts in 1975.
They Got Bingo
Look, you have to give the Giants credit. They found some incredibly creative ways to keep the offensive woes going early in Sunday's game.
In the second, Encarnación hit a liner to left and got thrown out at second. An inning later, Mike Yastrzemski was thrown out as he tried to steal the same bag. Those were somewhat normal, but it got ramped up in the fourth, when Tyler Fitzgerald reached on an infield single and then got doubled off by Sears, who snagged a pop-up that his infielders lost in the sun and made an off-balance throw to first.
With runners on the corners in the fifth, Yastrzemski tried to put a bunt down to bring a run home on a squeeze. He popped it up, and Langeliers made an athletic grab. In the sixth, Fitzgerald singled again but got caught stealing on a Mark Canha strikeout that turned into an inning-ending double play.
Long Gone
Ramos finally got the Giants on the board with a 110-mph laser that required jogging, not running. His homer to dead center in the seventh was his 18th of the year, and at 448 feet it easily was his longest.
Ramos joined former teammate Jorge Soler (three times) as the only Giants to hit a ball at least 445 feet this season. The homer was the longest at the Coliseum this year by a visiting player and the second-longest in Oakland by a Giant since Statcast took over tracking in 2015, trailing only a 454-foot bomb that Jarrett Parker hit a day before his three-homer game.
Ramos now has nine homers against left-handed pitchers this season. He entered the day with a 1.201 OPS against lefties, trailing only Aaron Judge among players with at least 100 plate appearances.
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