Giants pitchers deliver memorable outing as season nears end originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO — It’s been 10 years since the Giants and St. Louis Cardinals met in a postseason series with a very memorable ending, but this weekend, they don’t have anything meaningful to play for.
The Cardinals are 82-79, and the disappointment of the last six months is expected to lead to changes at multiple levels of the organization. The Giants have their own decision to make in baseball operations and they’ll need to win on the final day of the season just to finish at .500. Late Friday night, they scratched Blake Snell from Saturday’s start, which was meaningless for a player who is about to enter free agency for the second straight winter.
These games do carry weight for others, though, and on Saturday, two Giants experienced pretty cool moments while contributing to a 6-5 win on Saturday at Oracle Park.
Six months after surgery to remove an arm aneurysm, Tristan Beck pitched well in his first start and saved a staff that unexpectedly had a lot of innings to make up. The final one was pitched by Spencer Bivens, the 30-year-old who experienced a lot of firsts this season. On Sunday, he got his first big league save.
“That’s kind of a cool story,” manager Bob Melvin said. “A lot of good things happened today, even though the seventh inning wasn’t much fun.”
Erik Miller couldn’t record an out in the seventh, leading to three runs that tied what had been a 5-2 game. That brought Tyler Rogers into the game earlier than expected and forced Ryan Walker to pitch the eighth. With Randy Rodriguez and Taylor Rogers unavailable, the rest was left to Bivens.
Brett Wisely gave him a lead, dropping a two-out bunt that was whipped into right field, bringing the go-ahead run across. It wasn’t the most conventional decision, but Melvin appreciated it. Far too often this season, San Francisc has struck out with runners on base.
“We keep trying to preach that if you put a ball in play, something can happen,” Melvin said. “If you don’t strike out, you put a ball in play, something good can happen. That’s going to have to be a theme to us next year, is to cut down the strikeouts.”
Melvin noted how many pitches the Cardinals fouled off, which was part of the reason Beck couldn’t go deeper. He had a rough first inning in his first start of the year but allowed just one run, finishing the season with a 1.69 ERA in seven appearances. Beck looked around the park as he walked off the mound in the top of the fourth, but he said he was angry at himself more than soaking it all in. He hoped to give the Giants five innings on a day when they were short on fresh arms.
Still, he was able to appreciate what this meant after spring training surgery.
“It’s a nice little cherry on top to what was a long year,” Beck said. “To be able to get the start today and keep the team in a competitive spot, we pulled that one out, so it’s always nice to end on a personal little high note.”
There are ways for others to do that Sunday as the Giants try to finish at .500. For a second time, Tyler Rogers will be the NL’s appearances leader. The only man who can even tie him is teammate Ryan Walker, who has his own reason for hoping to pitch Sunday. Walker’s next strikeout will be his 100th. Matt Chapman needs an all-time day to get from 27 homers to 30, but by matching Saturday’s two doubles, he would finish with 70 extra-base hits.
San Francisco, unfortunately, are in a spot where personal highlights are all that matter. Bivens had another memorable one Saturday. The first save came two years after he was pitching in an independent league.
“It’s typically not what I do here, so to get another notch on the belt is pretty cool,” Bivens said.
