The San Francisco Giants have looked unstoppable for the last six days. That continued on Thursday when Jung Hoo Lee’s walkoff single gave the Giants a 4-3 victory, their fifth straight win, and a series sweep of the Chicago Cubs Wednesday.
With one out in the 9th inning and the score tied 3-3, Lee singled off Daniel Palencia (1-4) to score Christian Koss, who was pinch-running for Wilmer Flores and delivered an impressive but thoroughly unnecessary head-first slide into home for the winning run. That gave the Giants a 4-3 win, although as per his career history, the Giants didn’t score early enough for hard-luck starter Logan Webb (still 12-9) to get the victory, despite it being his 18th start of the season pitching six or more innings and allowing three or fewer runs.
Webb’s ERA actually rose to 3.16 after his seven-inning, seven-strikeout outing Thursday afternoon. The main damage came on solo home runs, the first from Dansby Swanson in the second inning to even the game, 2-2.
That was Swanson’s 19th home run of the season and the 158th dinger of Swanson’s career. It also extended his major-league record for home runs by a player named “Dansby,” which he leads by 158 home runs over…no one.
The Cubs took a lead on another solo homer in the 6th, this time from first baseman Michael Busch. Look at this Busch league hit.
That was Busch’s 24th home run of the season, tying him with Willy Adames on the season. You should know, Adames only had 22 going into this game. Let’s look at what happened!
In the first inning, Adames crushed the first pitch he saw into deep left field, scoring Rafael Devers, who had walked one batter earlier. It’s like they say: A walk’s as good as a hit, except when that hit is a soul-crushing 417-foot bomb over the fence.
In the bottom of the 6th inning, Adames went deep to a very similar spot off Cubs starter Shota Imanaga, who gave up five hits and three runs in his seven innings, along with five strikeouts and a walk. But his biggest mistake was throwing two high fastballs, that weren’t even all that fast at 90 MPH, up in the zone to a shortstop who feasts on them.
Adames may only be hitting .224 this season, but 24 home runs at the end of August are beyond what the Giants expected when they signed him to a long-term deal this winter. Thursday was his fourth multi-homer game of the season, the first Giant to notch that many since Barry Bonds. But besides hitting impressive dingers, Adames showed off his other two top skills Thursday: Defense, and celebrating.
Adames has been one of the league’s best defensive shortstops since he started the season slumping slightly with the glove. In the 7th, he helped Webb stay in the game by robbing Nico Hoerner off a hit with a nice play in the hole. But as good as Adames has been with the glove, he’s been even better with a postgame Gatorade bucket, as seen in Tuesday’s textbook soaking of Matt Chapman.
Look at Willy’s fundamentally sound form! He sets a solid base on his approach, staggering his steps and planting both feet for maximum accuracy and velocity. Some celebrating shortstops get too excited or try to aim for the head. Here, Adames aims center mass, delivering the majority of the cold, energizing sports drink directly to the back of the neck and shoulder blades for maximum soakage. Adames’ MORP (Moisture Over Replacement Player) numbers this season are off the charts! Wednesday’s game was a similar Gatorade master class, this time on Rafael Devers.
How does he do it? Part of it is anticipating the celebration. Watch as Lee’s game-winning hit scores Koss, and Adames gets to the plate before the throw, and nearly before the baserunner. It’s important to note that there were four more Giants due to hit before Adames, showing that his reputation for having a high party IQ is well-deserved.
But beyond his celebration timing and his textbook form, Adames showed that when a teammates gets a walkoff, he’s got that dog in him, especially if “that dog” is Spuds MacKenzie. Adames took a bead on Jung Hoo Lee and chased him down, though it wasn’t clear to observers, or either player, exactly what Adames was going to do when he caught Thursday’s hero. Given the San Francisco 49ers’ current situation at safety, Adames might get a text message from Kyle Shanahan this week.
He might break the Giants’ 21-year drought of having a 30-HR hitter, but Adames may also break the even-rarer 30-sports drink shower mark, which has stood since Jebediah Griffith dumped 37 medicinal opium-based tinctures on his teammates’ heads as a member of the 1887 New York Giants.
Beyond he celebratory excellence, the Giants helped their own cause with defense. Patrick Bailey gunned down Kyle Tucker as Webb struck out Ian Happ to end the third inning. In the 4th, Webb picked Hoerner off first, then struck out Caissie separately afterward. In the 8th, Charlie Kirk superfan Matt Shaw doubled, then got doubled off second by Casey Schmitt.
Ryan Walker (5-4) got the win by retiring Hoerner in the 9th in relief of Joey Lucchesi, who got two outs and a walk in 11 pitches. Jose Butto got out of the 8th in eight pitches, much to the delight of businesspeople ditching work to watch baseball.
But Thursday was the day for Willy Adames, who showed loyalty to his former team, the Milwaukee Brewers, by helping sweep their Great Lakes rivals and give the Brew Crew a 6.5-game lead in the NL Central. It’s a shame the Giants can’t face the Central Division more often, since they’ve won five straight and seven of their last eight against the division. It’s also a shame that the Giants only have three games left against Central opponents, a three-game set against the St. Louis Cardinals where the Cards will be fighting for the honor of their division, state fairs, saying hi to strangers, and calling soda “pop.”
As for the Giants, they’ll host the Baltimore Orioles this weekend and enjoy a few more days of semi-relevance, getting back to 66-68 and increasing their wild-card odds to a whopping 0.9%, as per ESPN.
So you’re saying there’s a chance!