Baseball is a game of swings, be it a swing and miss or 450-foot smash. Rarely does a game come down to the pitches left alone.
Yet the Giants won Tuesday night because of what they didn't do: swing.
Needing one more pitch to put the game away, Blue Jays reliever Trevor Richards sailed a changeup to Tyler Fitzgerald. It floated for an eternity, shaving the bottom of the strike zone as it nestled into the catcher's glove. Fitzgerald stood in the box, paralyzed. Ball.
He turned a 1-2 count into 4-2, working a walk and setting up Thairo Estrada to be the next hero to leave the bat on his shoulders.
Compared to Fitzgerald, though. Estrada got off easy. He took a pitch you or I would have taken. A breaking ball spiked in front of home plate, sending the winning run home and Oracle Park into delirium.
In baseball and in life, sometimes it comes down to what you don't do.
Up next: The Giants are right where they’ve been all season, two games under .500. That’ll change this evening, when Logan Webb (7-6, 3.09 ERA) makes his first start as an All-Star. He’ll face Chris Bassit (7-7, 3.43 ERA) at 6:45 p.m.