They don’t get much closer than this.
For the second straight night, it was an intensely close affair between the Colorado Rockies and the San Francisco Giants, but the latter was able to win the key play again, winning 1-0 thanks to a Brandon Crawford walk-off home run in the ninth.
It was a good old-fashioned pitcher’s duel in San Francisco as superstar Madison Bumgarner did his usual thing and youngster Kyle Freeland, continuing to make a name for himself with an extraordinary follow-up to his rookie campaign, matched him over seven innings, leaving the game in the hands of the bullpens.
The first decent opportunity for either team came in the bottom of the fourth when Buster Posey walked with one out and Brandon Crawford singled with two outs to move him over the third. But Freeland got a weak grounder off the bat of Pablo Sandoval to strand both the runners and keep the game scoreless.
Bumgarner carried a perfect game into the fifth and had two quick outs before Carlos Gonzalez finally broke through by doubling down the left field line. The Giants ace suddenly lost his command for a moment, walking Chris Iannetta and Noel Cuevas to load the bases. But unfortunately for the Rockies, that brought the pitcher Freeland to the plate. He struck out to leave ’em loaded.
Freeland found himself in a tough spot in the sixth after a one-out single by Andre McCutchen and a fielding error at first base from Ian Desmond who couldn’t quite handle a throw from Trevor Story. But the Rockies lefty didn’t despair, buckling down and getting a pop-up on the infield out of the hot-hitting-Rockies-killer Brandon Crawford.
Freeland finished off his night with a 1-2-3 inning in the seventh, putting the bow on his best performance of the season, allowing just five base runners—four singles and a walk—striking out four and blanking the Giants in the run column.
Scott Oberg came on in the eighth and did walk McCutchen with two outs but otherwise worked a clean inning in one of his better appearances of the season. He even stayed on for the ninth to record the first out against Hunter Pence. He was replaced by Harrison Musgrave, pitching in one of the higher-leverage situations in his early career, and Crawford got him by hooking a line drive just inside the foul pole in right field for the walk-off, game-winning home run.
What’s Next:
The Rockies try to salvage a game in the series on Thursday afternoon. Jon Gray will face off against Chris Stratton. First pitch at 1:45 Mountain Time.
