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Giants Bizarre Walk-Off Win

Published

11 years ago

October 14, 2014

San Francisco, CA – After going eight innings without a run scored the Giants prevailed in the tenth inning. Gregor Blanco bunted which forced a wild throw to first by reliever Randy Choate that drove in Brandon Crawford for the win. If there was ever a team that got lucky, it’s San Francisco who triumphed over the Cardinals 5-4 leading the National League Championship Series 2-1.

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The Giants headed into the ninth tied 4-4, Crawford leadoff the tenth with a free pass. This was San Francisco’s first hit since pitcher Tim Hudson’s hit in the fourth. Juan Perez hit a single to left field despite being unsuccessful in two bunt attempts earlier.

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

“Coming off the bench, Bochy had the confidence in me to get that bunt down,” Perez said. “If you fail at getting the bunt down, you at least better hit the ball somewhere. And I concentrated on getting a line drive somewhere, he gave me a couple of good pitches and I was able to get the base hit.”

Blanco’s bunt was near perfect as Choate rushed grabbing the ball in front of the mound and threw past first base allowing Crawford to score. A simple error secured the Giants win in a bizarre walk-off victory. After scoring four runs in the first, Hudson was the only batter to get a hit after the remaining offense went cold.

“Somebody asked me earlier if there was a way we can score a run other than a non-conventional way, and I said ‘If there is, we’re going to find a way,’” Travis Ishikawa said.

The Giants wasted no time getting on board first. Ishikawa hit a three-run double clearing the bases giving San Francisco a 4-0 lead in the first. After pitcher John Lackey forced both Blanco and Joe Panik to fly out, Pablo Sandoval hit a single and Hunter Pence followed with a RBI double making it a 1-0 game.

“I’m looking for a first pitch that I feel like I can put a good swing on it,” said Ishikawa. “I was able to put a really good swing on it and fortunate enough that it was able to find grass.”

St. Louis rallied in the fourth with a leadoff single from Jon Jay. Matt Holiday followed with a single putting two on and no outs. Kolten Wong who was the Giants killer today, hit a two-run triple trimming the lead in half 4-2. Wong went 2-for-two against Hudson who provided his own defense in the fifth.

He rallied a double play to end the frame. Hudson struck out Randal Grichuk and hit pitcher John Lackey putting him on at first. Then Matt Carpenter grounded directly to Hudson who threw to second for the out and shortstop Brandon Crawford threw to first for the out.

“That’s our personality as a team,” Hudson said. “We have guys that scratch and claw and go out there and do whatever it takes to try to get some runs across keeping the game close at times, finding ways to win in the end.”

“It was easy,” said Choate. “It was right there and I blew it. The ball just sailed on me. I threw it to where I thought Wong was going to be right over the base, and it just kind of took off to the left of me and sailed down the line.”

The Cardinals extended their lead 4-3 with an RBI single from Johnny Peralta who drilled a single down the left field line right past Sandoval who dove for the ball. Wong flew out to center field to end the threat in the seventh. But Grichuk tied the game when he took Hudson deep to left field on a solo home run. That chased Hudson off the mound bringing in the bullpen.

“Man, these are heard fought games, we don’t do anything easy,” Bochy said. “We score four runs in the first and don’t do anything after that and chip away. I mean they battle hard to get back in it, tied game. That’s who these two teams are, we’ve had two great ballgames, exciting games.”

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Oakland Post: Week of April 30 – May 6, 2025

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of April 30 – May 6, 2025

Published

2 days ago

May 4, 2025

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Gov. Newsom Approves $170 Million to Fast Track Wildfire Resilience

AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.

Published

1 week ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Courtesy of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu
California Black Media

With wildfire season approaching, last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 100, unlocking $170 million to fast-track wildfire prevention and forest management projects — many of which directly protect communities of color, who are often hardest hit by climate-driven disasters.

“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” said Newsom when he announced the funding on April 14.

“We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires,” he said.

Newsom also signed an executive order suspending certain regulations to allow urgent work to move forward faster.

This funding builds on California’s broader Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, a $2.7 billion effort to reduce fuel loads, increase prescribed burning, and harden communities. The state has also launched new dashboards to keep the public informed and hold agencies accountable.

California has also committed to continue investing $200 million annually through 2028 to expand this effort, ensuring long-term resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities.

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California Rideshare Drivers and Supporters Step Up Push to Unionize

Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.

Published

1 week ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌
California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into federal law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Also known as the “Wagner Act,” the law paved the way for employees to have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, according to the legislation’s language.

On April 8, the rideshare drivers held a rally with lawmakers to garner support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1340, the “Transportation Network Company Drivers (TNC) Labor Relations Act.”

Authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1340 would allow drivers to create a union and negotiate contracts with industry leaders like Uber and Lyft.

“All work has dignity, and every worker deserves a voice — especially in these uncertain times,” Wicks said at the rally. “AB 1340 empowers drivers with the choice to join a union and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and protections. When workers stand together, they are one of the most powerful forces for justice in California.”

Wicks and Berman were joined by three members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), and Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights).

Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU; and a host of others participated in the demonstration on the grounds of the state capitol.

“This is not a gig. This is your life. This is your job,” Bryan said at the rally. “When we organize and fight for our collective needs, it pulls from the people who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it and puts it in the hands of people who are struggling every single day.”

Existing law, the “Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act,” created by Proposition (Prop) 22, a ballot initiative, categorizes app-based drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors.

Prop 22 was approved by voters in the November 2020 statewide general election. Since then, Prop 22 has been in court facing challenges from groups trying to overturn it.

However, last July, Prop 22 was upheld by the California Supreme Court last July.

In a 2024, statement after the ruling, Lyft stated that 80% of the rideshare drivers they surveyed acknowledged that Prop 22 “was good for them” and “median hourly earnings of drivers on the Lyft platform in California were 22% higher in 2023 than in 2019.”

Wicks and Berman crafted AB 1340 to circumvent Prop 22.

“With AB 1340, we are putting power in the hands of hundreds of thousands of workers to raise the bar in their industry and create a model for an equitable and innovative partnership in the tech sector,” Berman said.