The Giants did not pay a small fortune for Matt Moore exclusively so he could beat the Dodgers. They saw a left-handed pitcher with the kind of emerging stuff that wouldn’t be available on the free-agent market, no matter the cost. A club-friendly contract through 2019 only added to his allure. Santiago Casilla came in from the bullpen to record the final out of the Giants 4-0 victory.
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Moore came within one out of the first Giants’ no-hitter against the Dodgers in 101 years. And he nearly became the first Giants pitcher to no-hit the archrival Dodgers since 1915, when New York’s Rube Marquard stopped Brooklyn.
This was the start that introduced him to a clubhouse that very much needed to get out of here with a win, as there’s no telling if the Dodgers believe in inevitable.
“Yeah, there might be”, Seager said.
Well, call it tempered happiness.
“He had everything working tonight”, Giants manager Bruce Bochy said.
“They used to not even count pitches, right?” He was immediately pulled after Seager’s hit plopped onto the grass in shallow right field.
There was one caveat to the celebration. Hunter Pence left in the sixth inning because of lingering soreness in his surgically repaired right hamstring. Pence said he hoped to play on Friday.
Denard Span made a tremendous catch in the ninth inning to record the first out and save the potential no-hitter.
“I felt sharp”, Stripling said. I think they had a hit every inning.
“That’s a win that can propel you”.
“You know what, it’s one of those things where two days ago we faced one of the best left-handers in the game [Madison Bumgarner] and fared pretty well”, Roberts said.
In his fifth San Francisco start, the 27-year-old Moore almost gave San Francisco a major league record five straight years with a no-hitter.
The Dodgers already were weeping into their blue-bordered handkerchiefs prior to the game.
Elsewhere, Tampa Bay beat Boston 2-1, the Chicago White Sox edged Seattle 7-6, and Detroit defeated Minnesota 8-5.
In his fifth start as a Giant, Moore showed his value.
The San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers have one of baseball’s oldest rivalries, a blood feud that dates all the way back to their days in NY. To be exact, he had walked 17 batters over the course of 23 innings while wearing a Giants uniform up until the no-hitter. He said he was over-rotating, which caused his arm to drag behind his body and made it hard to maintain a direct line to the plate.
Will this year’s Giants-Dodgers pennant race provide any moments that fans will remember years down the road? “Changeup was good, and fastball command better than we’ve seen it”. Eventually, he got Turner to roll over a cutter to third base, where Eduardo Nez gathered it for an out. Seager stepped to the plate with two outs in the ninth having previously walked against Moore.
Chris Heston threw one past year for San Francisco, Tim Lincecum did it in 2014 and also 2013 – with 148 pitches – and Matt Cain had a flawless game in 2012. It included a four-pitch leadoff walk to Grandal, followed by a 10-pitch strikeout of pinch hitter Chase Utley.
But as Bochy paced a trench in the dugout, Moore speared a comebacker from Charlie Culberson and then retired Joc Pederson on a well struck drive at Span. A late season surge pushed the Giants within a game of the pennant on the last day, and they ended up winning their last game while the Dodgers lost, resulting in a tie for the NL pennant.
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Moore tore a ligament in his elbow in 2014 and underwent Tommy John surgery. They have to give Moore the credit he is due and move on quickly.
