San Francisco Giants Off to World Series With Epic Walk-off Win
By Jamie Faue
It was a special night tonight in San Francisco, California as the San Francisco Giants clinched their third World Series berth in the last five years with a walk-off three run home run by the unsung hero Travis Ishikawa in the bottom of the 9th off Cardinals pitcher Michael Wacha.
Early on in the game it looked as if Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner was going to struggle to get the win tonight issuing two walks that resulted in a run scored off of Jon Jay‘s double to left. He also gave up two solo home runs in the top of the 4th to Matt Adams and Tony Cruz while St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright was on cruise-control for the better part of the night tonight.
However, Bumgarner would hunker down for the next four innings by not allowing a single base runners giving the Giants opportunities to fuel some offense and come back and win.
It wasn’t until the bottom of the 8th inning that the San Francisco Giants showed signs of coming back with Pat Neshek on the mound for St. Louis and Michael Morse pinch-hitting for Madison Bumgarner. Michael Morse crushed a solo home run to left field to tie the game at three. Afterwards Gregor Blanco, Joe Panik and Buster Posey would all go down in order and end the inning.
In the 9th inning Santiago Casilla would come in to pitch for the third straight night only to get one quick out and struggle to to get the second before loading the bases. On came Jeremy Affeldt in relief to keep the Cardinals from scoring in a two-out, bases loaded situation. Oscar Taveras would ground a ball right back to Affedlt for the final out of the inning.
In the bottom of the 9th Pablo Sandoval, Hunter Pence and Travis Ishikawa were set to face the hard-throwing right-hander Michael Wacha. To lead off the inning Sandoval poked a ball in the gap between first and second for a base hit. Next was Hunter Pence who tried to be the hero but ended up flying out to right-center, followed by Brandon Belt who would draw the walk giving the San Francisco Giants two on with one out for Travis Ishikawa.
Ishikawa was patient taking the first two pitches from Wacha, but the next pitch he saw he liked and belted it out to right-center field for a game winning, World Series clinching three-run home run.
With that the San Francisco Giants took game five and the series from the Cardinals by winning four games to one. They will now face the red-hot Kansas City Royals in Kansas City next Tuesday.