San Francisco Giants defeat Nationals, advance to NLCS
The San Francisco Giants got lucky. They got very lucky. The Giants defeated the Washington Nationals in game four of the National League Division Series on Tuesday night by a score of 3-2.
Two of their three runs came on mistakes made by Nationals pitchers. If that isn’t getting lucky to get to go on to the National League Championship Series, then I don’t know what is.
Oct 7, 2014; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants center fielder Gregor Blanco (7) reacts as he draws a bases loaded walk off of Washington Nationals starting pitcher Gio Gonzalez (47) to drive in a run in the second inning during game four of the 2014 NLDS baseball playoff game at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
The Giants scored first in the bottom of the second innning. After Nationals’ starter Gio Gonzalez got Brandon Belt to pop the ball up for the first out of the inning, he allowed a single to Brandon Crawford.
Next came one of the two mistakes made by Gonzalez that will probably haunt him for quite sometime. Juan Perez hit a ball back to Gonzalez who made a fielding error that allowed Perez to reach first base safely and moved Crawford to second. He allowed a single to the Giants’ starter Ryan Vogelsong to load the bases and walked Gregor Blanco, allowing the Giants to have their first run.
With still one out in the inning and the bases still loaded a ground out by Joe Panik allowed the Giants second run of the inning to score. Gonzalez had settled down but the damage had been done on an error and a bases loaded walk.
Oct 7, 2014; San Francisco, CA, USA; Washington Nationals left fielder Bryce Harper hits a solo home run against the San Francisco Giants in the 7th inning during game four of the 2014 NLDS baseball playoff game at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
The Nationals were able to score twice, once in the top of the fifth and again in the top of the seventh to tie the game. Both runs came off the bat of Bryce Harper. In the fifth, Harper doubled in Ian Desmond. In the seventh Harper plated the second run himself on a solo shot to right, his third of the postseason, off of Hunter Strickland.
The Giants got lucky again in the bottom of the seventh when Matt Thornton came in to pitch for the Nationals. Thorton got one out but allowed back to back singles to Joe Panik and Buster Posey.
He was then replaced with Aaron Barrett who proceeded to load the bases by walking Hunter Pence and allowed Panik to score by throwing a wild pitch to batter Pablo Sandoval. Either the Nationals pitchers were nervous or the Giants got lucky. It’s probably a little bit of both but more of the latter.
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The rest of the game went on without incident. Santiago Casilla came in to close the game in the bottom of the ninth and got the final three outs needed (he did allow a walk to Bryce Harper) for the San Francisco Giants to win the game and advance to the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Earlier in the day, the Cardinals defeated the Dodgers three games to one in the series to move onto the NLCS which will begin at Busch Stadium on October 11 at 8pm ET on FOX.