Span-tastic: Giants walk off in 14th

June 28th, 2017

SAN FRANCISCO -- Though the clock at AT&T Park showed midnight as Monday night's game ended, it was anything but the witching hour for the San Francisco Giants.
's single to right field scored to break a 14th-inning tie Tuesday night and lift the San Francisco Giants to a 4-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies. It marked the first time since May 27-28 that the Giants won back-to-back games.
"We feel like we've got a lot more energy out there and in the clubhouse," said Giants starter , who surrendered ' three-run, sixth-inning homer that accounted for Colorado's scoring.
With the score even at 3, Hernandez lined a one-out double off the base of the left-field wall off Rockies right-hander (1-1). "He broke my bat with a sinker, so I knew he'd throw me a slider," Hernandez said. (2-2), who worked three innings as the last of six Giants relievers, struck out. Up came Span, who spanked a 1-0 pitch to right field for his fifth career walk-off hit as the Giants improved to 7-3 in extra innings.

Trailing, 3-1, the Giants inched into a tie on 's sixth-inning sacrifice fly and pinch-hitter 's eighth-inning RBI single.
Rockies starter gave his team some much-needed innings, going 6 2/3 while allowing two runs on six hits and three walks with six strikeouts.
"For the most part I was able to locate everything," Hoffman said.

With the loss, Colorado's losing streak now sits at a season-high seven games. In that span, the Rockies have seen a half-game lead over the Dodgers in the National League West transform into a 5 1/2-game deficit.
"It's been a crazy seven days," Reynolds said. "It's been rough. It's baseball, man. Sometimes you get the breaks, sometimes you don't. It seemed like we were getting a bunch of breaks early and a couple of weeks ago; now everything seems to be going the other way."
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Not to be overlooked: Gearrin provided long-lasting, effective relief for the Giants with his winning effort. However, he was essentially matched by Colorado left-hander Seth Rusin, who faced the minimum nine batters in his three-inning stint. Rusin bookended his outing with strikeouts in the ninth and 11th and coaxed a double-play grounder in the 10th that stopped a Giants rally before it started.

Posey's pickoffs: Giants catcher threw out a pair of Rockies baserunners attempting to steal second base, thus denying Colorado potential offensive breakthroughs.
"What a game he had back there," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said.
Significantly, both plays occurred in extra innings. Posey threw out , who led off the 11th inning with a single, then erased Charlie Blackmon, who attempted his larceny with two outs in the 12th.
"Both teams made some plays," Rockies manager Bud Black said. "It was a pretty clean game, which made the game the way it was."

QUOTABLE
"Both teams, as the game went on, had some opportunities. In a game like this, where it was well-pitched on the front end by both starters, it usually comes down to the one big hit, or one big play at the end." -- Black, on his team's close loss
WHAT'S NEXT
Rockies: Colorado will wrap up its three-game set against the Giants by sending southpaw to the mound for Wednesday's 1:45 p.m. MT matinee. Freeland is in the midst of a stellar rookie campaign and is 2-0 with a 0.69 ERA in a pair of starts against the Giants this season.
Giants: In Wednesday's 12:45 p.m. PT series finale, left-hander will try to recapture the effectiveness he harnessed earlier this season, when he made six quality starts in a stretch of seven outings from April 30 to June 2.
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