Giants Prevail in a Marathon Thriller and Prevent a Sweep by the Cubs

[Mc'Lama™]

SAN FRANCISCO — When the baseball rattled off the wall in the vast right-center-field expanse of AT&T Park — and out of the elastic grasp of Albert Almora Jr. — it set off a race for home between Brandon Crawford, who had been anchored at second base, and the inhabitants of the San Francisco Giants dugout, who sprinted to mob him.

As Crawford crossed the plate to end a 13-inning, five-hour thriller, the Giants staved off elimination with a 6-5 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Monday night that had more twists and turns than the city’s famed Lombard Street.

The winning hit, which narrowed the Cubs’ lead in this National League division series to 2-1, was delivered by Joe Panik, the second baseman whose last name seems to mock the idea that jangled nerves would ever get the best of the Giants.

It was a record 10th consecutive playoff victory for the Giants when they have faced elimination, and if there have been wins with greater rewards, as in Game 7 of the World Series two years ago, few have been as satisfying or hard-earned.

“I think it is part of our DNA,” said first baseman Brandon Belt, who has played in each of those survival games. “That’s not to say that we can’t go out and lose tomorrow, but we have so much confidence in ourselves that we can win these ballgames. We know how to scratch and claw and find ways to win.”

The Giants won on a night when pitcher Madison Bumgarner’s aura of postseason invincibility was shattered by one unlikely swing — from the opposing pitcher Jake Arrieta, who opened the scoring with a three-run homer — and when their hide-your-eyes closer, Sergio Romo, gave up a game-tying two-run homer to Chris Bryant in the ninth inning.

Photo

The Giants celebrated staying alive in the playoffs. Credit Kelley L Cox/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
But those two gut punches pale to what the Cubs must pick themselves up from on Tuesday night.

If this is another great unraveling for the Cubs, then the ground ball that skittered under the glove of Leon Durham in 1984 and the fan Steve Bartman’s interference of 2003 will have company in their history of heartbreak.

Aroldis Chapman, the elite closer the Cubs dealt a raft of prospects to the Yankees for in July, gave up a 3-2 lead in the eighth inning when Conor Gillaspie smashed a two-run triple into the same chasm that Panik found.

Gillaspie got on top of a letter-high 101-mile fastball from Chapman, just as he did last week against another premier closer, the Mets’ Jeurys Familia, hitting a game-winning three-run homer in the Giants’ wild-card victory.

The Cubs bounced back with Bryant’s home run and got a spectacular catch by Almora in the bottom of the ninth on a Buster Posey drive down the right-field line that surely would have scored Belt with the winning run.

Panik’s winning hit for the Giants, in the 13th, came off Mike Montgomery, who was pitching in his fifth inning of relief.

Cubs Manager Joe Maddon was characteristically upbeat after the game.

“I’m going to leave pretty good tonight,” Maddon said, “because when you’re in the dugout among your players and you’re playing like that, with that kind of enthusiasm and effort and just everything is right about them and we don’t win, that doesn’t mean you get upset, man. Just come back tomorrow and let’s see what we can do.”

Photo

The Cubs’ Kris Bryant, left, after hitting a two-run homer to tie the game at 5-5 in the bottom of the ninth inning. Credit Ben Margot/Associated Press
Not all the Cubs, though, shared such a rosy disposition.

“It’s a tough one to swallow,” catcher Miguel Montero said. “We have to have a short memory.”

The plot pivots had rendered ancillary what had seemed a momentous moment Arrieta’s three-run home run off Bumgarner.

It gave the Cubs a 3-0 advantage in the second inning, but it carried even greater heft: an anvil blow to Bumgarner’s aura of invincibility. He had not allowed a run in 24 2/3 consecutive playoff innings.

That it was Arrieta who delivered the blow — ripping a line drive to left field, just high enough to clear the wall — was even more stunning. Bumgarner has not allowed a home run to a pitcher in 398 regular-season at-bats.

“The last thing any pitcher wants to do is give up a hit to another pitcher,” Bumgarner had said on Sunday.

The Giants had pinned their hopes of another playoff resurrection on Bumgarner and a return home, where their energetic fans might help reinvigorate an offense that had managed just two runs in Chicago.

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The Giants’ championships in 2010, 2012 and 2014 had provided an even-year rallying cry that dates to spring training and carried through Monday with lampposts festooned with banners stamped with the slogan “Believen.”

The Giants got one run back in the third when Denard Span doubled and scored on Buster Posey’s two-out single. They closed to within 3-2 when Span tripled with one out in the fifth and came home on Belt’s lineout to right. Arrieta got through the sixth unscathed, though, and relievers Pedro Strop and Travis Wood navigated the seventh.

SAN FRANCISCO — When the baseball rattled off the wall in the vast right-center-field expanse of AT&T Park — and out of the elastic grasp of Albert Almora Jr. — it set off a race for home between Brandon Crawford, who had been anchored at second base, and the inhabitants of the San Francisco Giants dugout, who sprinted to mob him.

As Crawford crossed the plate to end a 13-inning, five-hour thriller, the Giants staved off elimination with a 6-5 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Monday night that had more twists and turns than the city’s famed Lombard Street.

The winning hit, which narrowed the Cubs’ lead in this National League division series to 2-1, was delivered by Joe Panik, the second baseman whose last name seems to mock the idea that jangled nerves would ever get the best of the Giants.

It was a record 10th consecutive playoff victory for the Giants when they have faced elimination, and if there have been wins with greater rewards, as in Game 7 of the World Series two years ago, few have been as satisfying or hard-earned.

“I think it is part of our DNA,” said first baseman Brandon Belt, who has played in each of those survival games. “That’s not to say that we can’t go out and lose tomorrow, but we have so much confidence in ourselves that we can win these ballgames. We know how to scratch and claw and find ways to win.”

The Giants won on a night when pitcher Madison Bumgarner’s aura of postseason invincibility was shattered by one unlikely swing — from the opposing pitcher Jake Arrieta, who opened the scoring with a three-run homer — and when their hide-your-eyes closer, Sergio Romo, gave up a game-tying two-run homer to Chris Bryant in the ninth inning.

Photo

The Giants celebrated staying alive in the playoffs. Credit Kelley L Cox/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
But those two gut punches pale to what the Cubs must pick themselves up from on Tuesday night.

If this is another great unraveling for the Cubs, then the ground ball that skittered under the glove of Leon Durham in 1984 and the fan Steve Bartman’s interference of 2003 will have company in their history of heartbreak.

Aroldis Chapman, the elite closer the Cubs dealt a raft of prospects to the Yankees for in July, gave up a 3-2 lead in the eighth inning when Conor Gillaspie smashed a two-run triple into the same chasm that Panik found.

Gillaspie got on top of a letter-high 101-mile fastball from Chapman, just as he did last week against another premier closer, the Mets’ Jeurys Familia, hitting a game-winning three-run homer in the Giants’ wild-card victory.

The Cubs bounced back with Bryant’s home run and got a spectacular catch by Almora in the bottom of the ninth on a Buster Posey drive down the right-field line that surely would have scored Belt with the winning run.

Panik’s winning hit for the Giants, in the 13th, came off Mike Montgomery, who was pitching in his fifth inning of relief.

Cubs Manager Joe Maddon was characteristically upbeat after the game.

“I’m going to leave pretty good tonight,” Maddon said, “because when you’re in the dugout among your players and you’re playing like that, with that kind of enthusiasm and effort and just everything is right about them and we don’t win, that doesn’t mean you get upset, man. Just come back tomorrow and let’s see what we can do.”

Photo

The Cubs’ Kris Bryant, left, after hitting a two-run homer to tie the game at 5-5 in the bottom of the ninth inning. Credit Ben Margot/Associated Press
Not all the Cubs, though, shared such a rosy disposition.

“It’s a tough one to swallow,” catcher Miguel Montero said. “We have to have a short memory.”

The plot pivots had rendered ancillary what had seemed a momentous moment Arrieta’s three-run home run off Bumgarner.

It gave the Cubs a 3-0 advantage in the second inning, but it carried even greater heft: an anvil blow to Bumgarner’s aura of invincibility. He had not allowed a run in 24 2/3 consecutive playoff innings.

That it was Arrieta who delivered the blow — ripping a line drive to left field, just high enough to clear the wall — was even more stunning. Bumgarner has not allowed a home run to a pitcher in 398 regular-season at-bats.

“The last thing any pitcher wants to do is give up a hit to another pitcher,” Bumgarner had said on Sunday.

The Giants had pinned their hopes of another playoff resurrection on Bumgarner and a return home, where their energetic fans might help reinvigorate an offense that had managed just two runs in Chicago.

Sign Up for the Sports Newsletter
Get the big sports news, highlights and analysis from Times journalists, with distinctive takes on games and some behind-the-scenes surprises, delivered to your inbox every week.

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 Sign Up

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SEE SAMPLE PRIVACY POLICY
The Giants’ championships in 2010, 2012 and 2014 had provided an even-year rallying cry that dates to spring training and carried through Monday with lampposts festooned with banners stamped with the slogan “Believen.”

The Giants got one run back in the third when Denard Span doubled and scored on Buster Posey’s two-out single. They closed to within 3-2 when Span tripled with one out in the fifth and came home on Belt’s lineout to right. Arrieta got through the sixth unscathed, though, and relievers Pedro Strop and Travis Wood navigated the seventh.

But the left-handed Belt, who hit a game-winning home in an 18-inning win over the Nationals in a 2014 division series, led off the eighth with a single. Hector Rondon relieved Wood and walked Posey. Maddon then called on Chapman, who struck out Hunter Pence, setting the stage for Gillaspie.

After Gillaspie’s triple, Crawford — another left-handed hitter — singled in Gillaspie for a 5-3 advantage. It did not last long in the ninth. Romo walked Dexter Fowler, then hung a slider that Bryant lifted just over the wall in left. It was the 31st blown save for the Giants this year.

But it did not finish the Giants. It only seemed to set them up on Monday night.

Whether it does so beyond that — as in 2012, when they won three elimination games to beat Cincinnati and then three more to beat St. Louis — will be revealed on Tuesday night and perhaps again on Thursday if the series returns to Wrigley Field for the final game.

But these October nights, so familiar to the Giants, seem to have a way of leading to more.

“There’s a huge carryover,” Belt said. “You can definitely gain momentum from this. I think on the other side, it’s tough to see your lead go away and end up losing the game.

“That’s kind of been the way we’ve been the last five or six years. We survive and we find ways to win.”

But the left-handed Belt, who hit a game-winning home in an 18-inning win over the Nationals in a 2014 division series, led off the eighth with a single. Hector Rondon relieved Wood and walked Posey. Maddon then called on Chapman, who struck out Hunter Pence, setting the stage for Gillaspie.

After Gillaspie’s triple, Crawford — another left-handed hitter — singled in Gillaspie for a 5-3 advantage. It did not last long in the ninth. Romo walked Dexter Fowler, then hung a slider that Bryant lifted just over the wall in left. It was the 31st blown save for the Giants this year.

But it did not finish the Giants. It only seemed to set them up on Monday night.

Whether it does so beyond that — as in 2012, when they won three elimination games to beat Cincinnati and then three more to beat St. Louis — will be revealed on Tuesday night and perhaps again on Thursday if the series returns to Wrigley Field for the final game.

But these October nights, so familiar to the Giants, seem to have a way of leading to more.

“There’s a huge carryover,” Belt said. “You can definitely gain momentum from this. I think on the other side, it’s tough to see your lead go away and end up losing the game.

“That’s kind of been the way we’ve been the last five or six years. We survive and we find ways to win.”