Pablo Sandoval helped out the San Francisco Giants as a pitcher on Saturday. The nominal Third Baseman helped his team to a perfect ninth inning in the first of two games against the Los Angeles Dodgers and made sure that the Giants’ bulls were spared for the evening game.
“It wasn’t easy, but I’m doing everything I can to get the bull pen ready for the next game,” said Sandoval. The Dodgers clearly won the first game with 15:6. “We may have lost the game, but we all had a little fun in the end.”
The Dodgers set a new season record with 20 hits, only Sandoval managed to leave no L.A. player on base. Sandoval scored eight strikes at eleven pitches in his first MLB appearance as a pitcher and made his opponent’s own bench as well as his substitutes’ bench laugh.
“I knew without a doubt that he wanted to pitch,” said manager Bruce Bochy after the match. “He just loves to play baseball.” His opponent Dave Roberts was impressed by Panda, as Sandoval is affectionately called: “I like his throwing movement. It’s amazing how some people make things look so easy.”
The ingenious move not only raised the spirits of the Giants, it was also supposed to have an effect. In the double header’s second game, San Francisco won 8-3.
Center Fielder Austin Jackson, who was only hired as a free agent at the end of January, provided the decisive advantage for the Giants with a double in the fifth inning at Bases Loaded. With four more runs in the seventh inning, the Giants finally broke away and also benefited from six strong innings from starter Johnny Cueto.
The series between the two rivals will end on Sunday with a fourth match.
Page 1: Perfect Panda! Pablo Sandoval delivers amazing relief inning
Page 2: Results and highlights from the night