SAN FRANCISCO — Two grand slams, separated by about 10 minutes but thousands of miles, could change the course of baseball’s playoff race. What’s crazy isn’t the coincidence; it’s the fact that it matters at all.
On the cusp of elimination seemingly since the All-Star break, the San Francisco Giants are hanging by a thread to the mathematical possibility of a postseason berth. Not only will they not die — they beat the Colorado Rockies, 6-4, on Thursday for their ninth win in 10 games — their competition hasn’t exactly broken out the shovels, either.
At 78-78, the Giants improved to .500 for the first time since they were 61-61 on Aug. 23.
One loss by the Giants and one win by the Milwaukee Brewers or the Philadelphia Phillies will officially end their playoff hopes. But that was the case Saturday, too, and it remains true five days later.
Sometime around 7:15 p.m. PT Thursday — after Philadelphia lost its fifth straight earlier in the day — the Marlins’ Avisail Garcia launched a grand slam over the center field wall in Milwaukee. Once on the cusp of retaking the third wild card spot from the Phillies, leading 2-0 in the eighth inning, the Brewers were instead sent to a 4-2 loss.
At about 7:25 p.m., the first home run of Ford Proctor’s career sailed into the first row of the bleachers in left field at Oracle Park. After a pair of walks and a pair of singles already loaded the bases and plated one run, Proctor’s first career homer also happened to be a grand slam that broke open their win over Colorado.
As he rounded first base, Proctor pumped his first. And when he reached home plate, he was greeted by a hurricane of high fives.
Proctor, 25, a utilityman acquired via trade from Tampa Bay last month, became the 16th player in Giants franchise history to hit a grand slam for his first career home run, the first since Kelly Tomlinson did so against the Cubs in 2015. (It was also how Brandon Crawford recorded his first home run and hit in his very first game in 2011.)
The grand slam was made all the more meaningful when the Rockies rallied off Jharel Cotton and John Brebbia for four runs in the ninth, after being blanked for eight innings. The Giants had to call on Camilo Doval to record the final out.
Will it matter, though?
With the Giants’ win and losses by the two teams ahead of them, San Francisco staved off elimination again. With six games to play, they are 5.5 back of Philadelphia and 6.0 games behind Milwaukee for the third and final wild card spot.
As manager Gabe Kapler said pregame when presented with the information that the Phillies lost again, crazier things have happened. (But, as one reporter responded, have they?)
One crazy thing happening every five days or so since the start of April has been Carlos Rodon’s sensational season, which continued Thursday, buoyed by Proctor’s grand slam.
Rodon made no matter of the Giants’ monitoring his workload Thursday night, steamrolling through six shutout innings and reclaiming the National League lead in strikeouts, anyway.
Rodon’s 95th and final pitch registered 97.7 mph on the radar gun, coaxing a fly out to end the sixth inning. He finished off the previous two hitters with a rare curveball that Yonathan Daza took for strike three and a sweeping slider that sent Brian Serven back to the dugout, too — his ninth and 10th punchouts of the night.
Rodon, who already set the single-season franchise record for double-digit strikeout games, added to his lead with his 11th of the season. His total victim count for the season: 237, six more than the Brewers’ Corbin Burnes, who is scheduled to start Friday.
If the craziest outcome doesn’t come to fruition, 24,112 paying fans witnessed Rodon’s final start at Oracle Park this season. Nobody can say they were shafted at the box office.
In 15 starts on the shores of McCovey Cove, Rodon limited opponents to a 1.93 ERA, struck out 121 and walked 26 in 84 innings. His first start here, striking out a dozen over five innings against the Marlins back in April, merely served as a preview of what was to come. The only pitcher to finish a season with a lower qualified home ERA was Tim Lincecum (1.88) in 2008.
Even better: his numbers with catcher Austin Wynns (1.74 ERA, also in 15 starts), who helped out offensively Thursday night, too. Wynns extended his hit streak to five games with two more knocks, including an RBI knock with the bases loaded in the second that preceded Proctor’s grand slam and got the Giants on the board.
With one more set to come next week in San Diego, the focus shifts to the pressing question of whether it will be Rodon’s last start ever at Oracle Park as a member of the Giants. He can opt out of his contract and is expected to receive a long-term, nine-figure deal on the open market.
