The Giants in their celebratory home opener Friday displayed
multiple characteristics, most of which were familiar to fans and
all of which further validate the inescapable truth about
themselves.
By Monte Poole – The Oakland Tribune
The Giants in their celebratory home opener Friday displayed multiple characteristics, most of which were familiar to fans and all of which further validate the inescapable truth about themselves.
That is, they are either unwilling or unable to shake their compulsive predilection for creating knots in the bellies of their most devoted followers.
For nearly 4 hours at AT&T Park, against a resourceful St. Louis team, the Giants pushed their fans through an emotional obstacle course. They ran them around joy and sadness, over laughter and anger, through anticipation and denial.
They took them to the brink of exhaustion before achieving, thanks to Aaron Rowand, supreme fulfillment.
Yes, that Aaron Rowand.
His 12th-inning blast off the left-field fence gave San Francisco a 5-4 victory over the Cardinals, punctuating an afternoon of emotions slamming and splashing all over yard.
“Today was pretty much storybook,” said closer Brian Wilson.
And this summary comes courtesy of the man who jogged in to pitch the ninth, got two quick outs _ and then not only blew the save but also gave up the go-ahead run.
“It was going to so smooth, all the way to the ninth,” sighed Cody Ross. “I guess we’re back to ‘torture.”‘
Ross should know because, sidelined with a calf injury, he had to watch. He may as well have been among the 42,048 who paid for a seat.
They saw a 1-0 St. Louis lead give way to a 2-1 lead for the Giants. They saw two San Francisco home runs. They saw Cardinals manager Tony La Russa order consecutive intentional walks, then a five-infielder, two-outfielder defense _ and have it work.
They saw the Giants leave 17 men on base and yet they got their money’s worth. It was Rowand, so often a target of fan frustration, who ensured a happy conclusion.
The man who personified San Francisco’s offensive futility last season, and whose $12 million annual salary makes him quite the expensive reserve, scored the tying run in the ninth and came up clutch in the 12th.
With two out and Nate Schierholtz on first, Andres Torres dropped a dribbler fielded by pitcher Brian Tallet, whose throw to first was mishandled by Albert Pujols for an error. Schierholtz raced to third base. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa ordered Tallet to walk Freddy Sanchez, loading the bases for Rowand.
That would be the same Rowand who had come up in the ninth – after Wilson lost a 4-3 lead – with the bases empty and two out and delivered a single, raced to second on a wild pitch and evened the score when Pablo Sandoval singled to right.
“I felt like we had the right guy up,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of Rowand.
Rowand’s soaring drive to deep left-center was more than enough to send Schierholtz trotting home with the winning run.
“It was closer (to being a homer) than I thought it would be,” said Rowand, who like many others has been victimized by the deep power alleys of the ballpark.
If it was a redemptive moment for Rowand, he didn’t acknowledge it as such. He was, it seemed, just another Giants role player, playing his role.
“You prepare, get yourself ready and go up and take quality at-bats,” he said.
Which is to say his part is no different than, say, Tejada, who arrived in San Francisco with enough baggage to fill a freight truck. He was too old, his legs were slow and so was his bat. His power was gone.
And then, in the third inning, on the first pitch he saw before his new fan base, Miggy introduced himself by whacking a homer to left that put the Giants on the scoreboard.
Tejada’s part in this was no bigger than, say, that of Pat Burrell, whose re-signing over winter was almost an afterthought. He slumped badly at the end of last season, leaving many to wonder if he was finished.
Burrell’s rocket over the fence in center allowed the Giants to take a 3-1 lead into the seventh. There was a buzz in the ballpark, fans sensing a neat bow tie on the day the flag was raised on the team’s first San Francisco championship.
But the Cardinals touched Jeremy Affeldt for a run in the eighth, cutting it to 3-2, and Wilson gave up two in the ninth.
This, of course, only set the stage for the kind of theatrics that became customary with the 2010 Giants and already seem to be part of the 2011 script.
The cast has changed somewhat, but the Giants’ baseball storyline is the same. Torture, The Sequel, is now in production. Fans will have to deal with it.
