Major League Baseball announced they were suspending Matt Chapman for one game after Tuesday’s base-brawl. Chapman appealed the suspension. Unfortunately for the Colorado Rockies, he got to play Wednesday night while he was appealing, and went deep twice to life the San Francisco Giants to a 10-8 and a series sweep.
Two homers from Chapman, a two-hit game from Patrick Bailey and another Drew Gilbert provided just enough offense for the Giants
to escape a three-run Rockies 9th and another Hunter Goodman slugfest with a 10-8 win and a series sweep.
Chapman was suspended for pushing Rockies pitcher Kyle Freeland Tuesday after Freeland loudly took issue with Rafael Devers’ home run and benches cleared. Both players were ejected, as was Willy Adames, who along with Freeland and Devers escaped with fines.
All three players ended up with an unexpected night off, as the fracas happened only eight pitches into the game. Freeland is so rested that he’s starting Colorado’s game Friday night in pursuit of his 15th loss. Wednesday, the well-rested Chapman hit the first pitch he saw from starter German Marquez 450 feet over the center field wall, and to avoid any more fisticuffs, Chappie hauled ass out of the batter’s box.
That gave the Giants a 1-0 lead, which they stretched to 4-0 by batting around in the third inning. The Giants strung together four straight singles to start the inning, though Luis Matos was throw out going to third on Patrick Bailey’s single. The next two runners did go first to third, with Heliot Ramos taking third on Rafael Devers’ RBI single into the gap.
The non-suspended Adames hit a sacrifice fly, the non-suspended Chapman walked, and Wilmer Flores knocked in Devers as Chapman shambled into third.
Then Drew Gilbert drew the first walk of his MLB career — do they save the baseball for that — loading the bases, before Marquez got Casey Schmitt to whiff on his 37th pitch of the inning.
Robbie Ray was cruising to start, facing the minimum through three innings and striking out five. He hit Tyler Freeman with a pitch to start the game, though clearly unintentionally, but Bailey threw him out stealing.
In the 4th, the Rockies got on the board with three singles, one from Giants Killer Hunter Goodman, of course.
The Giants couldn’t score after Chapman doubled Adames to third in the 5th, then the Giants had a disastrous bottom of the inning, with as assist from some questionable calls.
Ray gave up a one-out double to Kyle “Son of Eric” Karros, continuing his family’s multi-generational battle with the Giants. He got Ryan Ritter to ground out and then got struck out Freeman to end the inning. Only the umpire missed the call, Freeman singled in Karros, and the inning spiraled out of control.
Not only that, it opened the door for Ramos to nearly murder Bailey. After a walk, Goodman singled and Ramos uncorked a truly terrible throw home that pulled Bailey across the third-base line — and directly into the path of Freeman.
Both players stayed in the game, but the Ramos error let the runners move up — and score on Jordan Beck’s single. Beck fouled off four 1-2 pitches before lining the ball right at Ray’s head on Ray’s 33rd pitch on the inning, and his last of the game.
Joel Peguero came in to relieve Ray and proceeded to earn his first career win by retiring all four Rockies he faced. For Colorado, reliever Luis Peralta did..the opposite of that. He walked his first two hitters before yielding a game-tying single from Bailey, who didn’t let a little head trauma cool off his hot bat.
Ramos followed with a go-ahead single, before he managed to retire Devers on a line out and being mercifully relieved — 0.1 IP, 4 runs, 2 hits, 2 walks, one loss.
Reliever Juan Mejia was one strike away from getting out the inning, but he hung a slider to Chapman and the fugitive from justice crushed a three-run homer, an offensive strategy right out of Earl Weaver’s playbook.
We should note that Bob Melvin got ejected after the fifth inning for arguing balls and strikes, albeit a few batters too late for it to matter. But by baseball rules, he did managed a full five innings, so he did still earn the win. Maybe he can borrow Matt Chapman’s lawyer for his impending fight with MLB’s disciplinary committee.
That gave the Giants a 9-5 lead, and they tacked on some insurance when Gilbert hit his third home run of the season. One week ago, Gilbert had a slash line of .097/.097/.194, with 10 strikeouts and two RBIs. After Wednesday, he’s up to .260/.275/.540, with three home runs, 10 RBI, and still only 10 strikeouts.
However, Gilbert’s dugout home run celebration was allowed to get completely out of pocket. Perhaps knowing that MLB officials would be watching him, Chapman acted like a man on probation and refrained from choking Gilbert in the dugout. Let’s just hope Kyle Freeland wasn’t watching this disrespectful display.
The Giants tried to let J.T. Brubaker close things out with a 10-5 lead and save the rest of the bullpen. He made it 2.1 innings before having to return to his primary job, going undercover to reform a corrupt small-town prison.
Ryan Walker came in and got his 14th save, but not before Goodman knocked in two more runs. He’s batting .400 against the Giants this season with 12 RBIs and the Giants will see him again on the final weekend of the season at Oracle Park. The Giants are inching closer to that series actually mattering, moving to four games out of the last wild-card berth and five game behind the San Diego Padres.
Now the Giants hit home runs in every game (17 straight after Wednesday), they get in fights, and runners go first to third on singles all the time. It’s a weird final month of the season, and it continues after a day off Friday in St. Louis. If you need Matt Chapman, he’ll be in his law library.
