What we learned as Giants ride bullpen game to win over Rockies originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
SAN FRANCISCO — For a few hours on Wednesday morning, Major League Baseball’s website erroneously listed the Giants as having officially been eliminated from the Wild Card race. The Giants long ago gave up any hope of winning one of those spots, but for another day at least, they stayed mathematically alive.
Any combination of two Phillies wins or Giants losses will bring an official end to that race, but a few hours after the Phillies continued their late-season slide, the Giants beat the Rockies 6-3. (Note: The Brewers also are well ahead of the Giants and do have a real shot at winning that third Wild Card spot.)
The win was the eighth in nine games for the Giants, who are now just one game under .500. Their latest bullpen game represented another strong night for a group that’s had a rough year.
John Brebbia and Sean Hjelle did the early work and Shelby Miller was masterful in his two innings, striking out five. The veteran now has struck out 12 of the 18 batters he has faced this season, which makes you wonder where he was in August.
Tyler Rogers pitched the eighth and stranded two in scoring position and Yunior Marte finished things off.
Weird Start
The Giants scored their three runs in the first on three singles, a walk and a sacrifice fly, but it was much stranger than it looks in the box score.
With runners on the corners, Mike Yastrzemski hit a single to center that allowed Joc Pederson to cruise home. JD Davis had been on first and he stopped at second, but center fielder Yonathan Daza’s throw to the cutoff sailed over his shortstop’s head and wasn’t stopped by third baseman Ryan McMahon, either. The ball skipped into the Giants dugout and both runners advanced. That’s when things got weird.
Davis was sent home after umpires determined that the ball went into the dugout, but the Giants challenged the play and Yastrzemski was given third after a long delay. He scored on a sacrifice fly by Brandon Crawford.
Still Streaking
Brebbia made his ninth “start” of the season and continued his strong run as the opener for bullpen games. Brebbia got two fly balls to center and then struck out Ryan McMahon before handing the game over to Hjelle, and he now has gone nine scoreless innings this year when serving as an opener.
The Giants have had the bullpen take care of 20 percent of the rotation’s workload since Alex Wood suffered a season-ending shoulder injury and Brebbia has made sure those games have at least gotten off to good starts. Scott Alexander also has two scoreless appearances as an opener this month. The strategy is one that fans have had a hard time embracing, but there’s no doubt it’s been effective for the Giants in recent weeks.
Latest Look
Triple-A Sacramento’s season ended Wednesday, so the Giants will send several players to their minor league facility in Scottsdale to keep them ready in case reinforcements are needed over the final week. One option, Hjelle, arrived Wednesday.
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Hjelle was activated when the Giants put lefty Jarlin García on the paternity list and he got real action right away, serving as the bulk innings pitcher in the bullpen game. Hjelle came on for the second inning and took the lead through the fifth, allowing two runs — one earned — in four innings of work. He struck out a pair and was pretty sharp other than a throwing error to second and a fastball that Alan Trejo hit the other way for a solo shot.
The appearance was Hjelle’s fourth of September. He got rocked by the Dodgers a couple weeks ago, but in the other three, he has allowed four earned runs over 13 innings.
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