Brandon Crawford’s grand slam helps San Francisco Giants beat Milwaukee Brewers 5-4 - MLB Update
The San Francisco Giants’ Brandon Crawford launched a tremendous grand slam to help the club overpower the Milwaukee Brewers 5-4 in the three-game series opener at Miller Park, on Friday night, May 27.
Having a 3-0 deficit, the Giants were under pressure until the sixth inning when Freddy Sanchez smashed a fast drive single to pave the road for heavy hitting. It made the conditions favourable for the Giants in the seventh inning.
Aubrey Huff drove in a line-drive double to lead off the inning and then Nate Schierholtz singled to the centre-field, allowing Huff to occupy third base. Afterwards, Miguel Tejada walked before short-stop Brandon Crawford entered the plate for his third
at-bat.
With the bases loaded and the Brewers fans on the edge of their seats, Crawford launched a dazzling 390-feet long four-run grand slam off the Brewers’ starter Shaun Marcum, to completely altar the situation of the game.
The hit stunned not only 37,034 viewers, it also surprised Crawford because of the feeling he had when he entered the plate. "It was all unreal," Crawford said. "Awesome. I mean, I still kind of have the jitters about it."
The Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy, who was about to lose his temper as the club has not had any considerable victory since last week, acknowledged the level of relief he acquired because of this homer.
"I'll be honest, I couldn't really tell if he had the call right," Bochy said. "But there's frustration building up, with everybody."
After giving this blow, the Brewers’ manager Ron Roenicke replaced Marcum with reliever Marco Estrada, who despite acting as per the expectations of the manager remained unable to take to the game back into his side. Closer Mike McClendon tossed in the last
two innings also went to waste.
In contrast, Tim Lincecum, who has given three runs, one two-run homer in the third and an RBI single in the fifth, all to Rickie Weeks, was relaxed after the seventh inning. Lincecum then completed his seven innings spell without allowing any further runs
and struck-out four batters to earn his fifth win of the season.
In the eighth inning, Sergio Romo gave an RBI single to Jonathan Lucroy, that provided some hope to the Brewers, but back-to-back shut-out pitching from Javier Lopez, Ramon Ramirez and closer Brian Wilson washed away the Brewers hopes.
Wilson threw a perfect ninth inning, struck out two batters to earn his 14th win of the season.
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