Giants rally in 9th for memorable 13-12 win over Mets

SAN FRANCISCO — Just call this the Joc Pederson game.

Pederson left the yard not once, not twice, but a career-high three times. However, it required even more for the Giants to end their five-game losing streak, as Pederson delivered a game-tying single in the ninth and Brandon Crawford ended the maniacal back-and-forth battle with a walk-off single to left field. Final score: 13-12.

Darin Ruf chugged home from second base and just beat the throw, ending one of the most memorable games in recent memory and putting an end to the Giants’ losing streak at five games.

Pederson tied the game twice, first with his third blast of the night, in to McCovey Cove in the eighth inning. Then with an RBI single again in the ninth. He drove in eight runs and became the only Giant besides Willie Mays to slug three multi-run home runs in a single game.

The game-tying blast that Pederson walloped in to the waters of McCovey Cove in the eighth inning came immediately after the Mets rallied for nine runs the previous two innings to erase what was once a six-run San Francisco lead.

Only a few minutes had elapsed since anything and everything at could go wrong seemingly was, as the Mets sprayed hits off San Francisco’s bullpen and reliever Tyler Rogers couldn’t turn off the spigot.

Of the nine runs the Mets mounted after Logan Webb left the game, two came on a seventh-inning home run served up by Dominic Leone, and the remaining seven came the following inning. All seven runs and all but two of the Mets’ nine hits — eight singles and one bases-clearing triple by Francisco Lindor — in the eighth were credited to Rogers, who recorded only one out.

But Pederson, always with a flair for the dramatic, would not allow his two-home run game go to waste.

So he slugged a third.

As soon as Pederson made contact with the 1-1 offering from Drew Smith, it was clear he knew it was gone. Pederson froze and struck a pose. He pointed back to the Giants dugout as he began his slow trot around the base paths. When the ball landed, splashing down 415 away, the Giants had tied it at 11, and Pederson had his third blast of the night.

After Pederson’s final home run, however, the Giants left the bases loaded. Dominic Smith led off the next inning with a 404-foot triple to center field and his pinch-runner scored on a sac fly, providing Pederson yet another chance to deliver more heroics the following inning.

The late inning rally ensured the Giants’ winning streak with Logan Webb on the mound at Oracle Park would reach 18 games, dating back to Sept. 8, 2020.

Back in command of his swing-and-miss slider, Webb gave the Giants five innings of two-run baseball, striking out six and issuing just one walk. He could have prevailed in the pitcher’s duel that was expected with Mets starter Chris Bassitt (4-2, 2.77 ERA entering Tuesday), but that was not the game the baseball gods had in mind Tuesday night.

The Giants got home runs from Pederson and Tommy La Stella in three straight innings, building an 8-2 lead. Including Pederson’s third and final, 10 of the Giants’ 11 runs came via the long ball.

Pederson, who has been mired in a slump since straining his groin earlier this month, turned on a first-pitch cutter in the third inning that Bassitt giftwrapped at 88 mph over the middle of the plate and placed it above the arcade in right field. He whacked his next one 436 feet to straightaway center field, widening the Giants’ lead to 8-2 in the fifth.

La Stella added to the Giants’ lead with a three-run blast in the fourth that landed only a few feet away from Pederson’s first home run. Leading off and playing designated hitter in his sixth game back from offseason Achilles surgery, La Stella also scored the Giants’ first run of the night — and only one manufactured off anything but a home run — after beating out an infield single and scoring on a groundout from Darin Ruf.

La Stella’s bat has been a welcome addition to the Giants lineup. His home run was his second since rejoining the club, and he has seven hits — five for extra bases — in 21 at-bats (a .333/.364/.762 batting line).

Pederson was 4-for-46 since returning from the groin strain before his pair of homers Tuesday. Four of his team-high nine home runs have come in multi-homer games, with his last coming April 24 in Washington, three days before he strained his groin on the base paths in Milwaukee.

The Giants’ eight runs off Bassitt were a career high, after they tagged the longtime Oakland A’s starter for five over six innings in his previous worst start of the season in a win at Citi Field on April 20.