Giants remain hot, beat Cubs 4-3 despite wild ninth, celebrate Pride Month – San Francisco Chronicle
Kevin Gausman never takes a pitch off. Each has a purpose. The heaters that are tough to catch up to, the split-fingered fastballs that are difficult to lay off, the sliders and changeups that keep ’em guessing.
Sometimes a pitch gets away. That’s what happened Saturday when Gausman flung a fastball to Patrick Wisdom, who crushed a two-run home run, a rare blemish for the Giants pitcher who hadn’t given up more than a run in 10 of his first 11 starts.
Gausman didn’t flinch. On an afternoon in which Pride Month was celebrated at Oracle Park, the right-hander pitched shutout ball the rest of his seven-inning, 97-pitch stint, and the Giants escaped a wild ninth inning to beat the Cubs 4-3 before 12,792.
Third baseman Evan Longoria exited in the ninth inning with a likely shoulder/collarbone injury after colliding with shortstop Brandon Crawford, both pursuing a grounder. The Cubs scored a run on the play and positioned runners at second and third with two outs, but Jason Heyward grounded out to end the game.
“Longo continues to work to keep his body healthy and is having such high quality at-bats and playing great defense, you feel he should get rewarded for all that with health,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “It really sucks to have what was an excellent game kind of soured slightly by that play.
“I’m really disappointed for him and have a ton of respect for both him and Craw for the way they went after that ball.”
Gausman struck out 10 batters, all swinging — nobody was hitting his splitter — including four in a row: Joc Pederson, Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Anthony Rizzo. Baez struck out three times.
Other than the second-inning mistake to Wisdom, the pride of St. Mary’s College, it was vintage Gausman, another dominant performance by the ace whose ERA is 1.27, a splendid opening to June after the right-hander won National League Pitcher of the Month honors for May.
Gausman gave up two hits and walked none. His ERA dipped from 1.40 because the two runs were unearned, thanks to Crawford’s fielding error before Wisdom’s homer.
Alex Dickerson hit his second homer in two days to make the score 2-1. Fourth-inning singles by Chadwick Tromp and LaMonte Wade Jr. put the Giants ahead 3-2. Crawford’s double in the fifth scored Longoria with the Giants’ final run.
Jake McGee struck out two of three batters in the eighth, and Tyler Rogers pitched a strange ninth in which the usually reliable defense did some unusual things.
Second baseman Mauricio Dubón bobbled Rafael Ortega’s grounder for an error to open the inning and then dropped a feed from Crawford, who had picked up Bryant’s grounder, but a review showed Dubón had possession long enough for the out.
Baez’s single put runners at the corners, and Rizzo hit a grounder to the left side that led to the collision. Bryant scored, and Rogers struck out Willson Contreras, then got Heyward on the game-ending grounder.
“Torture baseball,” said Tromp, who caught all nine innings. “There’s no better way to explain it. It was a roller-coaster ride. But at the end of the day, we’ve got a group of guys calm and collected. For us, there was never a doubt we were going to get the job done.”
The Giants became the first team to wear Pride colors as part of their uniforms — the SF logo on their caps resembled a rainbow — and also wore Pride patches on their right sleeves.
Tom Ammiano, former San Francisco supervisor and the first openly gay teacher in the city, was honored before the game. Transgender activist Honey Mahogany performed the national anthem. The Pride Flag and Transgender Flag were raised. Palm trees in Willie Mays Plaza were wrapped in the 11 colors.
“Obviously, it was really exciting,” Gausman said. “The anthem before the game. The palm trees out front. Really, everything. It was pretty cool. Obviously, this is a city that’s very inclusive, so it was fun to be a part of. I’ve never worn a hat like that before, so that was cool.”
John Shea is The San Francisco Chronicle’s national baseball writer. Email: jshea@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnSheaHey