SF Giants Win Game 3 5-4 In 10, Take 2-1 NLCS Lead

The San Francisco Giants love this time of year, and it shows.

Major League Baseball is reporting the Giants went into the bottom of the 10th inning tied with the St. Louis Cardinals at 4-4. Brandon Crawford began the Giants’ winning rally by coaxing a walk on Randy Choate’s 3-2 pitch. Juan Perez, who entered the game as part of a double-switch in the seventh inning, was not able to execute two sacrifice-bunt attempts, but atoned by singling to left field.

“Perez, he couldn’t get a bunt down and gets a base hit,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “Now you’re playing with house money, I guess.”

That advanced Crawford to second base, but he didn’t stay there long, as Gregor Blanco bunted an 0-1 pitch between the mound and the third-base line. Choate scooped up the ball and threw wide past first base, enabling Crawford to scamper home with the winning run, lifting the Giants to a 5-4 triumph over the Cardinals in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series. San Francisco is now ahead in the series, 2-1.

The Giants jumped ahead with a four-run first inning that featured Ishikawa’s bases-clearing double. The rally began with two outs, when Cardinals starter John Lackey surrendered three hits in a row — singles by Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval, and Hunter Pence’s RBI double.

An intentional walk to Brandon Belt loaded the bases and set up Ishikawa’s big hit, a drive that St. Louis right fielder Randal Grichuk appeared to have trouble tracking. The ball struck the wall to the right of the 421-foot marker.

St. Louis gradually eroded the Giants’ lead. Making his first career NLCS start, San Francisco right-hander Tim Hudson retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced before yielding three fourth-inning hits, including Kolten Wong’s two-out triple that scored two runs.

Jhonny Peralta’s two-out single in the sixth inning narrowed the difference to 4-3, and Grichuk homered off the left-field foul pole with one out in the seventh, tying the score and ending Hudson’s outing.

ESPN is reporting that the walkoff win came 12 years to the day after Kenny Lofton‘s single in the ninth inning ended the 2002 NLCS against the Cardinals and sent the Giants to the World Series.

St. Louis, last in the NL with 105 home runs during the regular season, has 12 in seven playoff games — eight in the seventh inning or later. The Cardinals connected in the seventh, eighth and ninth in Sunday’s 5-4 win.

The Giants and Cardinals play Game 4 later today at 8:07 PM PST at AT&T Park in San Francisco. The Cardinals’ Shelby Miller, goes against San Francisco’s Ryan Vogelsong.

[Image courtesy SB Nation/Ezra Shaw]