Matt Chapman's walk-off homer sends Giants to a fourth consecutive one-run victory

New York Times

4 hours ago

SAN FRANCISCO — Major league clubhouses undergo renovations so often that HGTV could make an episodic series out of it. Teams are forever juggling office space, making room for new technology, seeking to inspire a new vibe, responding to the whims and preferences of a new front office or coaching staff. They've even been known to consult a feng shui expert or two.
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It was no different for the Giants after Buster Posey took over as president of baseball operations this past October. The previous administration gradually mothballed most of the signage and emblems that commemorated the franchise's three World Series championships from 2010 to 2014. Perhaps there was a constructive thought behind the conscious decision to mute clubhouse reminders of that decade-old dynastic run. When nostalgia becomes a narcotic, it might blur your purpose in the present day.
Or maybe it got awkward to see daily reminders of a gloried past that you had nothing to do with.
Posey, of course, had everything to do with those three World Series championships. And he appreciates the power of nostalgia, in its proper dosage, to the mind of a major league player. So after barely a month on the job, Posey expressed a resolve to redecorate the clubhouse — beginning with the office space adjacent to the front door that had been converted to a hub for the analytics staff.
'It'll change,' Posey said in November. 'I want to be clear: They're a valuable piece to the entire picture. But trying to figure out where they can be available for the coaches and the players where maybe it's not right when you walk in the door? That's going to be a good thing.'
The office shuffling was not meant to be punitive. It was meant to reestablish a primacy of purpose: competing to win, no matter how it was arrived at or what it looked like or how a computer modeled it.
Now when you enter the Giants clubhouse, look to your left and you'll find a mini lounge with a chessboard and a Golden Tee arcade console. And in the hallway, you won't merely find a framed photo or tacked-up replica pennants to commemorate the three World Series titles. The Giants spent some money, kicked up some gypsum dust and installed three recessed and backlit display cases. The shiny circle-of-flags trophies are the first things that players see when they walk into the clubhouse and the last things they see when they head to the field.
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Nostalgia doesn't have to be an escape from reality. Not when it can help to model the present.
The Giants were down to their final out in yet another one-run game on Saturday when Matt Chapman's two-run home run sent them to an exhilarating, 3-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves. See if any of these postgame comments sound familiar:
'They all come down to the last pitch,' Giants manager Bob Melvin said. 'Seems like every game does.'
'I wouldn't love to play them every single day, but, yeah, it's going to serve us because we know how to play those games,' Chapman said. 'We know what it takes to come out on top. When the pressure is on, you got to make a play or take a good at-bat. Everything's heightened in those moments.'
'Yeah, torture,' Logan Webb said. 'It's torture baseball here.'
You cannot reincarnate a World Series championship season like 2010, when the Giants eked and squeaked their way to so many nail-biters that announcer Duane Kuiper made on-air appeals to the Geneva Convention. You cannot define every contour of a season, either, when 98 games remain on the schedule.
But this current team continues to groove to a tune that includes some heavy sampling from its past.
The Giants played their sixth consecutive one-run game on Saturday — their longest streak since an eight-game run in 2014, when they won their last World Series championship. Their 27 one-run games this season are tied with the Braves for the most in the major leagues. The difference is that the Braves are 9-18 in those games, and by now, conditioned for calamity. The Giants, after winning four consecutive one-run games, are 15-12 in them and perhaps beginning to develop a muscle memory for coming out ahead.
'But it seems like we've played them for three weeks straight,' Chapman said. 'So I think everybody would prefer to score some more runs.'
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That's what the players said in 2010, too. All the way to a dogpile on the mound in Texas.
'That's why you keep playing, keep fighting,' said Melvin, after managing his 13th consecutive game that was decided by two runs or fewer. 'One swing can do it. We've seen it happen many times. What is that, our eighth walkoff? So we're used to these types of games. It feels like with as many as we've had like this, we're battle-tested to the end. And until the last out, we have a chance.'
They only have that chance because their bullpen leads the major leagues with the lowest ERA (2.30 entering Saturday) as well as baserunners per inning (1.07). Their frontline trio of Camilo Doval, Randy Rodriguez and Tyler Rogers has been both effective and efficient, which is important because it's kept them on the table for Melvin to use without multiple days off.
Those frontline relievers have been needed so often because the Giants rotation seldom pitches the team out of a game. Their starters rank seventh in the majors with a 3.50 ERA, Robbie Ray is coming off Pitcher of the Month honors for May, and Webb, who was already a perennial presence on Cy Young ballots, is discovering ways to become even better on the mound.
Webb continued to assert his reinvention as a strikeout pitcher on Saturday while delivering another dominant home start. He struck out 10 in six innings; of his 11 career double-digit strikeout games, four have come this season. It was Webb's fifth career start with double-digit strikeouts and no walks. He's one of three pitchers in franchise history to meet those qualifications at least five times. (If you're looking for more 2010 parallels, the other two are Tim Lincecum (5) and Madison Bumgarner (12).)
'He doesn't need a double play at times,' Melvin said of Webb, who also drastically addressed past issues holding runners and has had one base stolen against him all season. 'Instead of getting a ground ball, he gets a couple punchouts. He's just a better pitcher now.'
Webb would pledge every spring to boost his strikeout rate and embellish the effectiveness of his grounder-inducing sinker. But who could've seen this coming? A third of the way into the season, Webb already has struck out 101 batters. The only pitchers with more are the Nationals' Mackenzie Gore and the Tigers' Tarik Skubal.
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What's the difference now? It's not like Webb's velocity is spiking through the roof. So is it the cutter he added to the mix? Throwing more two-strike four-seam fastballs at the top of the zone? Recapturing a changeup that faded in all the wrong respects at times over the past two seasons? Maybe it's all of the above. Mostly, it's getting consistently ahead in counts and giving Webb a chance to sharpen his knives.
'There's the scouting part of it, throwing the right pitches at the right time, setting guys up,' Webb said. 'As a collection, we've done a really good job of that.'
Webb credited catcher Patrick Bailey, pitching coach J.P. Martinez and assistant pitching coach Garvin Alston with those enhanced scouting reports and game preparation. Webb also credited two unofficial coaches who are former Cy Young Award winners — teammates Ray and Justin Verlander — for helping him hone his strikeout mentality.
'I'm not necessarily trying to strike everybody out. I just think I'm setting people up better for it,' Webb said. 'I always think about what Greg Maddux says about getting to 0-2. You get one chance to strike them out and then you go back to just trying to get them out. That's always been part of my mindset.'
The team's mindset and mood were different following Webb's previous start against the San Diego Padres when they lost 1-0 and their lack of offensive production was threatening to drag down their season. Then changes were made. Perhaps it's more than a coincidence that the Giants haven't lost in four games since replacing LaMonte Wade Jr. with Dom Smith at first base in addition to adding backup catcher Andrew Knizner and outfielder Daniel Johnson.
Smith has made the most noticeable impact with his situational at-bats as well as his defensive contributions at first base. He caught a foul pop against the netting in Friday's extra-inning victory over the Braves. On Saturday, he helped to snuff out a potentially troublesome ninth inning behind Tyler Rogers when he made a diving attempt at a ground ball and somehow recovered in time to take a throw from second baseman Casey Schmitt.
That defensive effort helped the Giants maintain a one-run deficit. They only managed three hits, including a home run from Wilmer Flores, in eight innings against Braves right-hander Bryce Elder. But Atlanta stayed away from closer Raisel Iglesias, who had a 6.75 ERA after blowing the last of a six-run lead to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday. Instead, the Braves handed the assignment to right-handed curveball specialist Pierce Johnson, who had thrown a game-ending wild pitch the previous night.
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Johnson gave up a one-out single to Heliot Ramos and retired Flores to bring the Giants to their last gasp. Then Johnson did worse than bounce another curveball. With a 1-1 count to Chapman, he hung one.
'His go-to is that curveball,' said Chapman, whose drive landed in the third row of the left field bleachers. 'I had a feeling that's what he was going to lean on in that situation.'
Chapman circled the bases to a cacophony of cheers, then arrived home to a water-splashing, jersey-ripping pile of bodies. It was his first walk-off hit as a Giant and his third career walk-off home run. He'd hit a pair of them for Melvin with the Oakland A's over a six-week span in 2019.
'I think Chappy's going to hit a home run any time,' Webb said. 'I thought Flo was going to do it, too. But I guess it was Chapman's day.'
Chapman was asked for his thoughts about the Giants' winning streak coming on the heels of a mini roster overhaul. Did those moves stir a sense of urgency in the clubhouse?
'It's funny, you know?' Chapman said. 'How things can change super quickly.'
(Top Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)