With two outs to go in Friday night’s 7-6, 12-inning victory against the Diamondbacks, reliever Cory Gearrin stood in left field facing incredulous stares from Denard Span and Hunter Pence.
“They were asking me, ‘What are you doing out here?’” Gearrin said with a huge grin. “I asked them where I should go. They told me to just play straight up. I said, ‘What’s straight up? Where do I line up for that?’ It was fun. It was definitely a first for me. It’s something I’ll never forget.”
The entire 5-hour, 23-minute game was hard to forget, not just Gearrin becoming the first Giants pitcher since Noah Lowry in 2007 to play another defensive position, and the first since Keith Comstock in 1987 to start an inning on the mound, move to a different position, then return to the mound.
Gearrin earned the save after Santiago Casilla blew another one in the 10th inning, a remarkable occurrence in so many ways, starting with manager Bruce Bochy’s surprising decision to let him try to save a 6-5 game.
On Friday afternoon, two days after Casilla allowed a ninth-inning homer in what became a 7-6 loss to the Rockies, Bochy declared he would use different relievers to preserve games, ending Casilla’s reign as the singular closer.
With 11 other relievers his disposal, Bochy let Casilla start the 10th. Even more incredible, with one out, Bochy let Casilla face his personal Torquemada, Jake Lamb, whom Diamondbacks manager Chip Hale sent to pinch-hit.
Lamb was 2-for-2 with two homers against Casilla this season and had three homers against Casilla overall.
Sure enough, Lamb homered again to tie the game 6-6 and pinned Casilla with his eighth blown save, the most by a Giant since Armando Benitez in 2006.
Bochy letting Casilla face Lamb seemed like the wrong move. Kelby Tomlinson bailed out his manager with a pinch single in the 12th off Dominic Leone, the 12th Arizona pitcher, to drive in the go-ahead run. The Giants are 3-5 on the trip. Tomlinson has two of the game-winning hits.
Bochy explained that he chose Casilla against the Diamondbacks’ right-heavy lineup because he already had used his other late guys, Sergio Romo and Hunter Strickland. Bochy could have gone to Joe Nathan, but Friday night’s sequence shows that Bochy still is not ready to trust the 41-year-old to close.
“He’s been here,” Bochy said of Casilla. “He has 31 saves. Joe had two outings. We had our guy out there. He got a nice out there (a Chris Owings groundball). He made some nice pitches to the first hitter. He’s just got to stay away from the long ball.”
As for why Bochy let Casilla face Lamb, Bochy said, “There was nobody on. I was hoping he’d make good pitches and execute them. If I take him out there (the Diamondbacks) have their big right-handed hitters coming up.”
Instead of a save, Nathan got his first win for the Giants since 2003 with a harrowing, but scoreless, 11th inning. He allowed a leadoff single by Brandon Drury, who got to second on a wild pitch and to third on a flyball.
Nathan needed to strike out pinch-hitter Phil Gosselin, and he did, on an outside fastball. Jean Segura then drove a long third out that Hunter Pence raced into the gap to catch, a fine play, but not his best of the night.
It was a big inning and night for Nathan, who has not pitched consistently in leveraged situations since 2014 and allowed a walkoff double Wednesday night in Colorado.
“I’ll tell you, that was the first time in a while getting into a spot where a punchout is what you need,” Nathan said. It felt good. I even caught myself thinking, ‘You know what? It’s been a while since I’ve been in this situation.’ I’m glad it worked out.”
Which brings us to the 12th inning and Gearrin, who was summoned to save a 7-6 win after the Giants already blew a 5-4 lead in the seventh and Casilla’s 6-5 lead in the 10th.
The first hitter was Owings, a right-hander, with the left-handed Lamb on deck. Bochy had warned Gearrin through bullpen coach Mark Gardner that the manager might send him to left field while Javier Lopez came in to face Lamb.
Bochy said Gearrin was a pretty good athlete who could handle a ball hit his way. So out to left Gearrin went, replacing Angel Pagan, the first time the pitcher had played another position since he was at second base as a college freshman.