Just Flex Baby!

Sep 4, 2025 | 2025 Season, Latest Post

by
Greek Giant

It’s hard to know where to begin with last night’s 10-8 Giants win that gave them a sweep over the Rockies in Denver. It was an exciting game, one with many weird and unusual plays. Let’s begin with Matt Chapman, the unofficial team captain and perennial platinum-glove third baseman extraordinaire. Last night Chapman appealed his absurd one-game suspension for his involvement in the fracas on Tuesday night, and rightly so. That meant he could play and play he did, going 3-4 with two home runs, four runs batted in and three runs scored. It was a sensational game on his part. His first home run came in the top of the second inning off Rockies starting pitcher German Marquez. It was a bullet to right center to put the Giants up 1-0. It traveled into the Giants bullpen and was measured at 450 feet! His second home run came in the top of the sixth inning. It was a three-run bomb to left center to give the Giants an 9-5 lead after the Giants had just gone ahead earlier in the inning after being down 5-4 when Colorado plated four runs in the bottom of the sixth inning to bounce back and chase Robbie Ray, the Giants starter on this night.

“It’s obviously unfortunate that I have to get suspended, probably, but we wanted to appeal it and see what we can do. I wanted to be out there and help this team no matter what. Every game is super important for us. The fact that I was able to be out there and make an impact was huge.”

–Matt Chapman

Earlier in that top of the sixth inning, with the Giants trailing 5-4, Schmitt and Matos walked (an indication of how bad the Rockies pitching is, walking the first two batters right after your team takes a one-run lead). Bailey then singled in Schmitt to tie it and Ramos singled in Matos to put the Giants ahead for good before Chapman’s blast.

In the top of the third inning a Devers single, Adames sac fly, and Flores single put three runs on the board for San Francisco to make the game 4-0.

Robbie Ray, for his part was pitching well, until that sixth inning when he surrendered those four runs but they came with an asterisk because home plate umpire Dan Bellino missed a strike three call that would have ended the inning. Ray threw a 2-2 fastball to Tyler Freeman that appeared to be in the strike zone, but the pitch was called a ball instead of strike three. Freeman ended up lining the next pitch to center field for a two-out RBI single, cutting the Giants’ lead to 4-2.

It added three runs and 15 pitches to Ray’s night and it ended up being the end for Robbie and for Bob, as in Melvin, who argued later in the game and was tossed for doing so. But in this case, Melvin was right to go the distance with is tirade. It was a costly strike miss by the ump, which is to say, Ray needs to take some responsibility too for not getting out of the jam against a 101-loss team.

Bob Melvin protected his starting pitcher.  I have to give him big time credit for that:

“I stuck with him one hitter too long,. ’m trying to get him through that inning. Here, you try to be a little bit more patient with your starters, but there was more to it than that. I felt like he was out of that inning, and he deserved one more hitter. Obviously, it didn’t work out, but it’s too bad because the inning is over there [if he gets the called third strike], and he can go out the next inning and do what he’s been doing for the entire game.”

–Bob Melvin

Ray has not been himself in the past month. Is it fatigue? Is it arm trouble? Is he having personal issues? When I mean “not himself” i mean a fastball that is a few ticks lower than it should be and command that is not what it was earlier in the season. Lost in the Giants surge is Ray’s mini-slump if you will and it is an issue that needs to be addressed.

When you have a game as crazy and exciting as this one it’s hard to know where to go with your post title but I chose “Just Flex Baby!” because it makes me think of Al Davis’s famous “Just Win Baby!” utterance from the 1980s Raiders days. I always hated the Raiders, I still do, but I always liked Al Davis’s focus on winning championships. It was healthy for football.

But I digress.

For the Giants, they, once again, flexed their power muscles with three more homes, two by Chapman as I wrote, and one by Drew Gilbert, a bullet in the top of the ninth inning to make the game 10-5. It was a solo shot that provided a little insurance because the Giants needed it. On this night in the bottom of the ninth inning the Rockies would not go down quietly. They would end up scoring three runs off J. T. Brubaker before Ryan Walker was called on to calm the threat and finally record the final two outs to earn his 14th save of the season. He allowed the three runs to score in surrendering a sac fly and a two-run double to Hunter Goodman but since the base runners were Brubaker’s, Walker was not charged with a run. This is a rule that needs some sort of tweaking, if you ask me.

Patrick Bailey was a hero in this game, going 2-4 with one run batted in and recovering from a collision after going for an errant throw to the plate and getting bowled over by Rocky Freeman. Both players were more than a bit groggy but incredibly, both stayed in the game. We need to talk about Patrick Bailey. He has turned on his hitting in the second half of the season, coming up with big hits from both sides of the plate to raise his batting average to .213 while continuing his sterling defense that will likely get him another gold glove. That defense was on display in the bottom of the first inning, with a tremendous assist by Casey Schmitt. Tyler Freeman , the lead off batter for Colorado was hit by a pitch and promptly tried to steal second base. Bailey’s throw was tailing towards right center but Casey Schmitt made a tremendous leap and grab of the errant throw, not only preventing an error that would have lead to a man on third with nobody out situation, but also snagging the ball and tagging Freeman’s cleat well before the second base bag. It was a remarkably athletic play and when it was reviewed the out was correctly called. Just like that, instead of nobody out and a man on third to start the game, the Giants and Ray had a one out, nobody on situation. Ray then retired the next two batters to get out of the inning with no runs. I will repeat, it was a tremendous play.

Heliot Ramos went 2-4 with an RBI and two runs scored.

It’s time to talk about Drew Gilbert. After watching his laserbeam homer in the top of the ninth inning I got to thinking: The Giants need to let this kid play against both righties and lefties. He brings tremendous energy to the team. With his speed, enthusiastic play and pop he is like the love child of Pete Rose and Corbin Carroll. I want more Gilbert.

With their three long balls last night the Giants have set a San Francisco-era record by homering in 17 consecutive games. The Giants have clubbed 36 homers over that span, which is the second-longest streak in franchise history behind a 19-game stretch from a Johnny Mize-led club in 1947.

The Race for the Pennant

At 71-69, the Giants are now four games behind the Mets (75-65) for the third National League Wild Card spot and five behind the Padres (76-64) for the second. Both teams hold tiebreakers over the Giants, but it’s not outside the realm of possibility that they could continue to sneak back into the playoff picture over the final 22 games of the season. The win was the Giants tenth in the past eleven games.

The Highlights