Sports columnists Ben Frederickson and Jeff Gordon congratulate Ryan Helsley on his domination this season before debating what his future should look like.
SAN FRANCISCO — A bunt meant to steal a single and prolong an inning instead turned to a decisive run and might have given longtime Cardinals fans a shiver of a flashback.
With two outs and a runner at first base, Giants infielder Brett Wisely turned to drop the two-out bunt. He pushed the ball to Cardinals reliever Matthew Liberatore’s right, and the lefty scrambled to give himself enough time to make the play.
His throw went wide of first.
The Cardinals have been there and done that.
Liberatore’s error allowed Tyler Fitzgerald to score all the way from first base and become the difference in a 6-5 victory for the Giants on Saturday at Oracle Park. The teams’ penultimate game of the 2024 season pivoted on a play eerily similar to one that ended Game 3 of the National League Championship Series in 2014 at the same ballpark. That moment featured a Giant dropping a bunt, a Cardinals’ lefty picking up the ball, and that same Cardinals lefty chucking it on the same line as Liberatore into foul territory.
Randy Choate’s error, however, allowed the Giants’ a walk-off win.
The Cardinals had a chance to answer Saturday in the ninth and got the tying run on base before Giants right-hander Spencer Bivens retired three consecutive batters for his first big-league save. And that wasn’t even the Cardinals’ best chance to take ahold of the game. The Cardinals marooned a total of 14 runners and went 4 for 16 with runners in scoring position.
Pallante’s punctuation on 2024 reinvention
The innings the Giants did not score runs against Andre Pallante passed quickly.
The Cardinals’ right-hander, who began the season as a reliever and reinvented himself on the go as a starter, completed five innings in a start scripted to be abbreviated. There were ways the start mirrored his season. The Giants laced three consecutive hits against him to start the game, and two of them came from right-handed batters just as so much of the early season success against Pallante did.
Then he found his footing.
Pallante struck out Matt Chapman to calm the inning and then got a double play to end it. He got nine outs from a run of nine Giants batters, and didn’t slip back into trouble until a leadoff double in the fourth. The Giants scored twice to increase their lead to 4-1 and stole a base against Pallante. He adjusted and struck out two batters to chill an inning that could have been worse, and then finished with five outs from the final six batters he faced.
Not in line for a decision due to the Cardinals’ rally, Pallante finished his first extended stretch as a starter with an 8-8 record and a 3.78 ERA.
Seventh-inning uprising
The seventh began innocently enough with a leadoff walk drawn by Alec Burleson.
Percussion followed.
On their way to three hits each before the ninth inning, Paul Goldschmidt and Brendan Donovan hit back-to-back doubles. Donovan’s scored both of his teammates to erase the bulk of the Cardinals’ deficit and make it a one-run game. As the seventh unspooled, the Cardinals would send nine batters to the plate. They’d have four chances to take the lead after Jordan Walker tied it.
The Cardinals’ right fielder, who had a busy and successful day in Oracle Park’s tricky Levi’s Landing corner, skipped an RBI single to left field that scored Donovan and knotted the game, 5-5. The Cardinals’ comeback was complete with three runs in the inning, the last of withc came off of sidewinder Tyler Rogers. The Cardinals loaded the bases with a one-out walk only to see the inning fizzle.
Roycroft bruised by hits, hit for bruise
Rookie Chris Roycroft, part of the towering group of young relievers the Cardinals have stashed in the late-season bullpen, took over for Pallante in the sixth inning and dealt right away with traffic.
In the space of five batters, he allowed a leadoff double, a sacrifice fly, and back-to-back walks.
That was not what knocked him out of the game.
The Giants’ No. 9 hitter, Grant McCray, drilled a line drive back at the mound that Roycroft and his 6-foot-7, basketball-built frame could not avoid. Roycroft turned his back to the liner and took the carom off his right shoulder. The ball bounded from there for an infield single. With a trainer nearby, Roycroft took some practice throws off the mound before being removed.
Thrust into a bases-loaded jam, Kyle Leahy took as many warmup pitches as he needed and needed only two pitches to get out of the inning.
Mike Yastrzemski hit a deep fly ball to center, where Michael Siani met it to end the inning and keep Roycroft’s ERA from increased bruising.
Early lead; an unusual stat
Before his first sacrifice fly of the season, Goldschmidt went 151 games and more than 638 plate appearances into the season.
It took him two games to double that total.
With Giants lefty Blake Snell predictably erased from an announced start Saturday, the Cardinals welcomed his replacement, right-hander Tristan Beck, with back-to-back baserunners to open the first inning. Masyn Winn worked a walk, and Burleson followed with single to center. With Winn at third, Goldschmidt launched a fly ball to left field – plenty deep enough to allow Winn to score for the first baseman’s second sacrifice fly of the road, second sacrifice fly of the week, and second sacrifice fly of the season.
That puts him one away from tying last year’s total, of three.
The potential rally sputtered from there when Burleson held up at third on a single and Beck got back-to-back strikeouts to finish the first.
Right-hander throws eight innings and gets four RBIs of support from Brendan Donovan, Alec Burleson in 6-1 victory against Giants. McGreevy sh…
The Giants’ Tyler Fitzgerald, left, scores on a throwing error by Cardinals pitcher Matthew Liberatore to break a 5-5 tie in the eighth inning of game his team won 6-5 on Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in San Francisco. Cardinals catcher Pedro Pages awaits the throw.