Giants notebook: Defense sets up Travis Ishikawa's heroics

SAN FRANCISCO - The Giants have delivered several sparkling defensive plays in these playoffs. None was more important than the combo maneuver turned in by Pablo Sandoval and Brandon Crawford in Game 5 of the National League championship series on Thursday.

With the game tied 3-3 and one out in the top of the ninth inning, Matt Adams worked Giants reliever Santiago Casilla for a walk, and Randal Grichuk followed with a single between third base and shortstop.

The potential winning run was on second base, and he seemed destined for home plate when St. Louis’ Kolten Wong shot a ball to Sandoval’s left. But the hefty third baseman dove and got enough of the ball to keep it in the infield. Crawford, a peerless shortstop, did the rest. He scooped up the ball and swiftly fired a strike to second baseman Joe Panik at the bag for the second out.

“I was gonna try and go get it,” Crawford said. “I don’t think I would’ve gotten there, but I was trying. That’s the winning run on second base, so I would’ve tried my best. But when I saw him knock it down, I guess it was just instinct kind of took over. I tried to treat it like a normal ground ball and get that force at second.”

The Cardinals failed to score, setting the stage for Travis Ishikawa’s walk-off home run.

AFFELDT COMES THROUGH

The Giants are used to Santiago Casilla closing out games. But the right-handed reliever couldn’t quite get there on Thursday. After Crawford’s amazing play, he walked Tony Cruz and was done for the night.

In came Jeremy Affeldt, the 35-year-old lefty who has been part of all three of the Giants’ recent World Series runs, to face pinch hitter Oscar Taveras. Affeldt has been in heavy use lately; manager Bruce Bochy said before the game he wasn’t sure if Affeldt was even available for Game 5.

“I was tired,” the reliever admitted. “But a lot of times for me, I call it ‘getting into the present.’ If I try to resist and say I’m not tired, that’s too much mental fighting for me. So I just said, look, I know I’m tired. I’ve gotta stay calm, I don’t need to overthrow, I need to relax and put the ball in the strike zone and see what happens. … If I got beat, I was gonna get beat in the strike zone.”

Affeldt didn’t get beat. He got Taveras to hit a chopper back to the pitcher for the final out.

ALL IN GOOD FUN

Here’s a perfect representation of how poised, how loose, how goofy these Giants can be. Bases loaded in the ninth inning. Game tied 3-3. Two outs. Stadium rocking so loud you think it might fall down. Every player in both dugouts leaning on the rails, eyes wide.

And Crawford decided to hide Brandon Belt’s first baseman’s glove. Really.

The Giants were making a pitching change, going from Casilla to Affeldt. And when Belt put his glove down for a meeting at the mound, Crawford made it go away.

“It’s baseball,” Crawford said later. “We have fun out there playing. We’re all friends. We just have fun playing baseball, that’s the bottom line.”

Belt didn’t need to see the equipment manager to solve this mystery.

“He knew it was me pretty quick,” Crawford said. “I asked him if at any point he did think, ‘Hey, where did I put my glove?’ He said a split-second, which was all I was really going for.”

You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.