It was another wild one for Game 3 of the NLCS in San Francisco tonight, which ended in dramatic fashion. With the series tied and now in Giants territory, the St. Louis Cardinals had their backs against the wall going into this one. And things started off on the worst foot.
In the 1st inning, the Giants took a 4-0 lead thanks to great hitting. Buster Posey and Javier Blanco both got hits to keep the inning going and Hunter Pence took the mound and brought Posey home with an RBI double, with 2 outs. Two batters later with batters on, Travis Ishikawa cleared the bases with a double to right, bringing home Sandoval, Pence and Belt and putting the Giants up 4-0 to finish the inning.
The Cardinals didn’t let that stop them, though. In the top of the 4th, rookie Kolten Wong smashed a 2-run RBI double, which looked gone, but ended up hitting the wall. John Jay and Matt Holliday still scored and the San Francisco lead was cut in half to 4-2.
St. Louis continued chipping into the lead in the 6th inning when Jhonny Peralta singled and brought home John Jay, who was on third base after stealing from second.
The other Cardinals rookie, Randal Grichuk, came through in the clutch in the top of the 7th by hitting solo HR to left field and tying the game.
The game remained tied headed into the final inning, with neither side making anything happen and going 3-and-out on every series until the 10th inning.
In the bottom of the 10th with two runners on, San Francisco’s Blanco was going to move runners ahead with a sacrifice bunt, but a routine throw out to 1st by Randy Choate went wide left, bringing Brandon Crawford in from second base and effectively ending the game with a score of 5-4 on an error.
Game 4 will be played Wednesday in San Francisco at 8:07pm EST.