“I Want One More Day With You”

On July 31, 2012 the Giants acquired Hunter Pence from the Phillies and the newest member of the #ForeverGiant club had arrived. Pence was a last minute trade deadline guy who instantly became a fan favorite. It wasn’t long before you saw number 8 jerseys around the yard. But Pence underperformed through the end of the year going 48-219 (.219), 7HR, 28R, 45RBI, and 60SO. But the Giants went 38-21 in that span finishing 1st in the NL West with 94 wins, 8 games ahead of the Bums. Hunter Pence meant more than just a bat and a glove. He’s a rare mix of on field talent and cheerleader. A great “clubhouse guy” as they say. Always positive, always optimistic, if not a bit quirky. One of the best descriptions I ever heard of Pence running was “he looks like a toaster falling down stairs”. No one will remember Pence struggling to end the regular season, but they will always recall his pregame speech before Game 3 of the NLDS in Cincinnati. The Giants, despite being home for the first two games of this series (odd because the Reds had more wins than them and started on the road), were flat. Almost like they forgot how to play baseball. Johnny Cueto started Game 1 against us and only threw 6 pitches before coming out of the game with an injury. I thought for sure the Giants would beat up the Reds pen on short notice, but Sam LeCure threw 1.2 innings and 27 pitches and got the W! Sam LeCure! The Giants were held to 7 hits by 6 different Reds pitchers. The most important part of this game was Posey taking Mat Latos deep to lead off the 6th (a little foreshadowing) but they ultimately lost 5-2 as Matt Cain took a rare L. Game 2 is hardly worth mentioning as the Giants suffered the worst lost (9-0) of their three magical postseason runs. We’re here to talk about Game 3 anyway so let’s play ball.

The Most Important Play

Boy if you were nervous before this game started the bottom of the 1st must have cut your life expectancy by 3 years. Remember, this was the Division Series and the Giants were one loss away from being eliminated. The Reds just destroyed us at home and now here we are in Cincinnati trying to win three in a row. The Reds never lost 3 consecutinve games at home all year and Homer Bailey, the Giant slayer, was on the mound. He had just thrown a no hitter against the Pirates (and would no hit the Giants the following year) and he almost threw another one in Game 3! The Giants didn’t get their first hit until the 6th and only had 1 through 9 innings. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s talk about this play in the 1st inning. Brandon Phillips lead off with a great 5 pitch at bat that ended with a single off Vogelsong. Vogey was 14-9 in 2012 with a 3.37 ERA and was 7-5 on the road. This was a break out year for him and he was as good as anyone to get a W for us. But this inning was stressful immediately as he was in the stretch. Zack Cozart came to the plate and Vogey eventually got him to 2-2. On the 6th pitch of the at bat, Phillips attempts to steal 2nd base as Vogelsong throws a terrible curveball in the dirt that Posey doesn’t even touch and it rolls all the way to the backstop. Phillips hardly broke his stride as he reached 2nd as Posey hadn’t even got to the ball yet. When Buster finally reaches it, he’s on the dirt warning track about 50 feet behind home plate and Brandon Phillips is sprinting to 3rd! Buster takes one step and fires an absolute bullet to Panda at 3rd. The ball beats Phillips by plenty as Sandoval swipes the tag all over him.

An incredible play from Buster Posey to hustle to that ball and put a perfect throw on it. So the first out was made at 3rd base which was too bad for the Reds because Cozart walked 2 pitches later, bringing up Joey Votto. Votto would fly out but then Ludwick and Jay Bruce both singled to score Cozart before Vogey eventually struck out Scott Rolen on 8 pitches. The final score of this game was 2-1 Giants. If Brandon Phillips stops at 2nd base and is never tagged out at 3rd, the Reds would have scored twice in the 1st preventing the tenth inning, where the Giants took the lead, from ever happening. Buster’s throw basically saved the season (at least for one game). Vogelsong threw 30 pitches in that 1st inning but only gave up the one run. His final line was 5 IP, 3H, 1ER, 3BB, 5SO, 95 pitches for a GSc of 59. He battled.

The Most Important Hit

Well, there are only 3 hits to choose from and only 1 came in the first 9 innings (Scutaro 2 out single in T6). But the other 66% of our hits came in the 10th! I’m going to talk about one of those. Tonight it’s Hunter Pence. Pence, as you may recall, became famous for his pregame dugout speeches to fire up the boys. Game 3 of the NLDS was the first time he did this as the Giants were a game away from elimination. Looking at the offensive totals, it would seem his rally cry didn’t get the bats going as he hoped. But it sure fired up any pitchers who were listening. The Giants pitching was the only reason we were still playing in the 10th. The Reds scored 1 in the 1st and then nothing since. Vogey went 5, Affeldt 2, Casilla and Lopez split the 8th, and Romo the 9th. They had held the 97 win Reds to 1 hit from the 2nd inning on! So here we are in the 10th inning in Ohio, and Buster Posey had just singled off big old Jonathan Broxton to lead it off. Now here’s Pence who’s struck out twice and lined out to right. He digs in, bat waving back and forth, body all jittery. Broxton throws a high fastball but Pence turns around to bunt and like, hacks at it, fouling it off. That looked bad. Let’s not try that again. The 0-1 pitch was a fastball inside, no bunt attempt this time. Bochy clearly changing his mind. The 3rd pitch was a slider just low for ball two, a great take. 2-1 now to Hunter. After Pence fouls off the 4th pitch he starts limping around the batter’s box in discomfort. Trainer and Bochy come out and look at him, clearly looking at his left leg. Looks like a cramp in his calf that tightened up on the swing. The game stops for about 90 seconds as Pence stretches his leg. He slowly gets back in the box and Broxton is ready to go. The 2-2 pitch is low and Pence does a good job to lay off to bring the count full. Would be easy for a lot of guys to get hurt and then just swing and miss at the next pitch to get it over with. But not Pence. Not in this game. You can’t give a pregame speech like he did and then bow out. Set an example. Broxton steps and throws the 3-2 pitch and Pence shoots one just passed Rolen into left field and hobbles his way down to 1st base, clearly still in pain.

TBS showed a shot of the Giants dugout of Bumgarner holding a helmet as if he might pinch run for Pence. However, Hunter stayed in and it was now guys on 1st and 2nd with nobody out. So an injured Pence got the hit that put Buster in scoring position who would come around to score the winning run. If he doesn’t move Buster to 2nd the Giants don’t score and who knows how many more hitless innings those two teams would have played that night.

The Most Important E5

2012 was Scott Rolen’s final season. He had a hell of a career being the 1997 Rookie of the Year, 8 time Gold Glove winner, 7 time All Star, and finished 4th for MVP in 2004. In his last three seasons he was stellar with the glove, winning his final Gold Glove in 2010. With only 10 errors in 2012, he was due for a bad hop. We just talked about how the top of the 10th inning started so let’s jump back in where we left off. Belt was up after Pence and had never had a sacrifice bunt in his career plus he had some good swings earlier so Bochy elected to not bunt with him. Well, Belt struck out swinging for the first out. That brought up Forever Giant Xavier Nady who promptly struck out swinging on 3 fastballs. Ugly. Now with 2 outs here comes Joaquin Arias with Buster still out on 2nd. It’s gonna have to take a ball in the gap to score him with his speed. But when you win in the postseason sometimes you need the ball to bounce your way. You need a little bit of luck. The San Francisco Giants were due for some of that. On Broxton’s first pitch to Arias, catcher Ryan Hanigan botches the fastball inside and it rolls away allowing Buster and Hunter to move up! Now a base hit can score Posey easily. Or another passed ball! Or an error! A lot of pressure is on the defense now. Arias fouls away the next pitch to make it 1-1. Broxton has now slowed it way down. 20 seconds or more between pitches. Arias fouls off another one. 1-2 now. This is tense. Another big long break between pitches as the crowd waves their white towels (a sign of surrender?). On the 4th pitch Broxton throws 95 that runs in on Arias a bit. He swings, chopping it in the dirt with a big high bounce slightly towards Rolen’s left. With Arias’ speed Rolen is forced to play the short hop. But the ball came up on him and hit him in the chest, falling in front of him.

He barehands it after once bounce and fires to first late and Arias beats it out! Buster scores and the Giants take the lead! Seeing the safe call at first base Arias pumped his fists in celebration, the dugout fired up. For Rolen there was no other way to play that ball. He couldn’t wait back on it because of Arias’ speed. The only play was to charge it and hope the short hop doesn’t eat you up. It was just a perfectly placed little dinker that ended up winning a playoff game. Fans will forget that the next batter was Sergio Romo who struck out on 4 pitches, the only postseason plate appearance of his career. But Arias’ little dink saved the day and Hunter Pence got to play another game with Angel Pagan and saw what Ryan Theriot wore the next day.

Odd Stat

The Giants won Game 3 of the NLDS with 3 hits. In their 94 wins in 2012, they were only held to 3 hits or less five times. In those games they were 0-5. In fact when the Giants tallied 5 hits or less they were 4-19. Between Games 2 and 3 of the NLDS the Giants had a total of 5 hits and still managed to win a game. Incredible. The last time the Giants won a game while only getting 3 hits was on Sep 24, 2010 in Colorado when they also won 2-1 behind Lincecum. From 2010-2012 the Giants were held to 3 hits or fewer 22 times and were 1-21. Then they win a postseason elimination game on the road with 3 hits. Baseball is crazy.

In Game 4 of the NLDS the Giants had their 3rd hit before the top of the 2nd inning was over. I guess Homer Bailey was good that night.

A Great At Bat

I really want to give this award to Hunter Pence as well for his 10th inning AB, but I’m going to try real hard and not. Because there was so little offense in this game, I’m going to give it to Angel Pagan who had a huge situational plate appearance in the top of the 3rd. The Giants were down 1-0 and Homer Bailey gave the Giants a gift by hitting Blanco to start the inning. It must have thrown Bailey off because then he walked Brandon Crawford to put 2 on and 0 out. This brings up Vogey who of course puts a perfect bunt down on the first pitch to move the runners up. First pitch sac bunts are great momentum builders. So here’s Pagan with guys on 2nd and 3rd and 1 out. You cannot strike out. You cannot hit a tapper back to the pitcher. You cannot pop up. But you can hit a sac fly, and that’s exactly what he did. On the first pitch. It was the old fashioned move ’em over, move ’em in on 2 pitches technique. This ties the game and ultimately sends it into extras. If Pagan doesn’t come through then there’s 2 outs and you need a hit to score Blanco. If we don’t score that inning and that could have been the ballgame. So a really good job by Pagan to not miss a pitch he could drive. Great at bat.

Hunter Pence’s Speech

This is what Pence said in the clubhouse according to 3rd base coach Tim Flannery,

“Get in here, everyone get in here… look into each other’s eyes… now! Look into each other’s eyes. I want one more day with you. It’s the most fun, the best team I have ever been on, and no matter what happens we must not give in. We owe it to each other. Play for each other. I need one more day with you guys. I need to see what Theriot will wear tomorrow, I want to play defense behind Vogelsong because he’s never been to the playoffs… play for each other not yourself. Win each moment, win each inning. It’s all we have left.”

– Hunter Pence before 2012 NLDS Game 3

Other Notables

There were two guys named Xavier that played in this game: Nady and Paul.

The visiting team won every game of the 5 game series.

If you’re wondering, from 2013-2019 the Giants record in games where they got 3 hits or less is 10-46.

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Next Blog: NLDS Game 5 – January 13, 2020