Mercury News
HOUSTON -- It was tough to spot the contender over the weekend at Minute Maid Park, which doesn't speak well for the Giants. Their opponent was on pace for a 108-loss season.
But there is no mistaking Pablo Sandoval's All-Star swing.
A beaten-down Kung Fu Panda delivered when nobody else could, lifting a two-run home run to the opposite field in the 11th inning that sent the Giants to a 6-4 victory over the Houston Astros on Sunday afternoon.
Although his right shoulder remained too sore to swing right-handed, the switch-hitting Sandoval mustered up the difference-maker off right-hander Mark Melancon, and local boy Brandon Belt popped a three-run homer as part of a career-best, four-hit afternoon.
The Giants used six pitchers and every last muscle fiber to avoid being swept in three games by the team with baseball's worst record. Most vitally, the victory allowed the Giants to inch within 1½ games of the N.L. West-leading Arizona Diamondbacks, who lost their fifth consecutive game.
For all their whirlwind of injuries on a dripping, disappointing, challenging and grueling 4-6 trip, it wasn't a widow-maker. The Giants return home trailing Arizona by just a half-game more than when they left the cooler climes of AT&T Park.
Torture? Sure. But there's a different one-word motto this season: survival.
"The best way I can put it is, we survived," said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, who looked as if he needed his vitals checked. "It wasn't great by any means. To win the last one, we survived it. We're not too far back, for which we're fortunate. We know it.
"That's one of the hardest-fought wins I think I've ever been involved in."
It started off promising enough. Belt hit his three-run shot in the second inning to delight his friends and family, many of whom wore T-shirts with a baby giraffe -- his clubhouse nickname -- and a "Keep Belt Awkward" slogan.
"I was hating life yesterday," said Belt, who was 0 for 4 and once lost track of the outs Saturday. "I was so eager to see all my friends and family, and I didn't do so good. I came in today and just wanted to clear my head and put the bat on the ball. If I can keep it that simple, that's when I'll be at my best."
Belt's home run off former minor league teammate Henry Sosa was the Giants' first three-run shot since Brandon Crawford hit one July 2. Before that, they hadn't hit a three-run homer since Freddy Sanchez on June 2.
In addition to filling their monthly quota, the homer provided a margin that had been safe all season. The Giants entered the game 32-0 whenever they held a three-run lead.
It wasn't that easy, though.
For all the offensive ineptitude that Bochy has witnessed this season, nothing turns his size 81/8 cap into a pressure cooker more than when his pitchers issue walks. Spot starter Dan Runzler issued three of them, including one to Sosa, and checked out in the middle of Houston's four-run second inning.
"Now you're beating yourself," Bochy said. "We knew it'd probably be a bullpen day, but I didn't think we'd start in the second inning."
Belt's single contributed to the Giants' tying rally in the fourth, when Mike Fontenot's sacrifice fly scored Nate Schierholtz.
But the Giants couldn't push ahead. An invisible force field seemingly kept them from breaking a tie as they stranded seven runners over the seventh, eighth and ninth innings -- with each missed chance more calamitous than the previous one.
Sandoval, batting lefty-on-lefty, struck out to strand two runners in the seventh. The Giants also saw Schierholtz thrown out trying to score on a moderately deep fly ball in the eighth; Schierholtz flied out with the bases loaded in the ninth.
But the Giants bullpen held firm. Jeremy Affeldt survived a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the ninth to force extras and give Sandoval another chance.
A day earlier, Sandoval said he felt "like (crap)."
And now?
"I still do. I'm tired," he said, nursing a badly bruised foot, too. "I just look for one pitch. I got it. This is for us. It's important for us."
Bochy said nobody needs Monday's day off more than his All-Star third baseman.
"Well, early on he looked like he felt," Bochy said. "You know I love Pablo. Those last two at-bats were good ones. That's what you hope your 3-4 hitter does for you late in a ballgame."
Late in a season, too -- one in which the banged-up Giants, amazingly, are still relevant.
"We're strong," Sandoval said. "We've got a new team. Guys are playing hurt. The team we've got, if we keep playing like we did early, we'll do a lot of things. We can get there again."
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