The San Francisco Giants beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Wild Card game today, October 1, by a score of 8-0.
The game was started out tense, with both Giant’s starter Madison Bumgarner and Pirates’ starter Edinson Volquez keeping the game scoreless for the first three innings. Then, in the fourth, San Francisco loaded the bases for shortstop Brandon Crawford, who put a 1-2 pitch over the right field fence to give the Giants a 4-0 lead and silence a packed PNC park. From there, the Giants added a run in the seventh and two in eighth on RBI singles by first baseman Brandon Belt before getting one more in the eighth on a single by catcher Buster Posey.
While San Francisco forced Pittsburgh to use six different pitchers, the Giants only needed one. Madison Bumgarner pitched like the ace he is, pitching a complete game shutout, and needing only 109 pitches. Going into the game, the Pirates had one of the best offensive lineups in the MLB. Bumgarner held that lineup to four hits and struck out ten.
“He was on tonight,” Crawford said. “He was locating early. He was on on all of pitches, and when he does that he’s lights out.”
With the win, the Giants move on to the National League Division Series against the Washington Nationals. That will be a best of five series, with the first team to win three games moving on to the National League Championship series. The first game will be this Friday, October 3, at 12:00.
“We like our chances against anybody,” Manager Bruce Bochy said. “We know how good they are and they’ve had an incredible year, but we just want a chance. This was a do or die game, and there’s as much pressure on this game as any other game… We’re just very, very excited that we’re still playing and get to play.”