When last you visited Mission Creek, you thought “your” San Francisco Giants were merely performing the old MLB Soap Opera of Adversity. Who knew they were acting out the most surreal August on record: heat domes and hurricanes, tornadoes and East Coast earthquakes, Congress in session, losing to the Astros, losing to the Cubs, and a slow-moving, silent atom bomb still leaking into and out from Japan? By the end of August, you’ve signed up for the next Neighborhood Emergency Response Team training.
Before falling into your fallout shelter, you feel this strange attraction to Mission Creek, to a ballpark (named for a corporation that has donated $450,000 to Texas Gov. Rick Perry since 2000), a baseball game and a comfort smell that can only be garlic fries. You feel the Giants are finished, but you’re going to give them one more chance. The team hands out rally rags; that’s how important this series with the Diamondbacks shapes up to be. The Snakes have won nine in a row, while the Giants have foundered against Little League opposition.
During the first inning it seems those rally rags will be needed for drying the tears. A walk, an infield hit and a double produce a run for the Snakes; should have been two. Matt Cain, pitching for SF, gets out of the inning with just that one run scored — a sigh of relief so strong it pushes away the fog already rushing down onto the field.
In the bottom of the first, Carlos Beltran, this year’s version of the Savior Who Couldn’t Save the Giants, rips a monster triple. OK, no run scores, but that hit is a harbinger. What does harbinger mean? In his next at-bat, Beltran crushes a two-run home run; next he drives home another run with a single. Beltran makes his mark in the mudflats of Mission Bay. Connoisseurs of fine hitters agree: “C’est magnifique!”
He comes to SF via Manati, Puerto Rico, and the New York Mets. You have yet to see him at either La Palma or Fruitlandia; you have no information on his favorite burrito, but a kid told you that if you want his autograph, he goes around in a big black limo.
Now that it is once again considered sane to think about unemployment, you learn that the official unemployment rate in Manati is almost double that of San Francisco. The Mets are 13.5 games behind in the NL East.
Coming back from the brink of unemployment, Cody Ross hits a double and a homer, and his eighth inning catch (scroll down) is the play of the game. It could be the play of the season, because in making it, he demonstrates the will, skill, desire and luck the Giants will need to make the playoffs this year.
Only four Giant players get hits, but the team draws six walks. Runners in scoring position are brought home (not always) and the defense gets it done (not always).
In the middle of August’s rage, Tim Lincecum was quoted as saying, “We’ve got to find our luck, and we’ve got to do it soon.” They may have found the real Carlos Beltran tonight. Did they find their luck? The Freak will find out on Saturday, and so will you, when he goes up against D-backs ace Ian Kennedy.