LaMonte Wade Jr.’s clutch home run helps Giants maintain lead over Dodgers in NL West

Saturday afternoon, the San Francisco Giants have been two outs away from seeing their NL West lead shrink to a half-game over the rival Los Angeles Dodgers. The division race has not been that shut since July 6. As an alternative, LaMonte Wade Jr. pinch-hit in opposition to Athletics nearer Lou Trivino and hit one of many greatest house runs of the season for the upstart Giants.

Wade’s pinch-hit two-run house run turned a 5-4 deficit right into a 6-5 lead, and San Francisco held on to win by the identical rating (box score). The Dodgers beat the Mets just some minutes earlier (LA 4, NY 3) to increase their profitable streak to 9 video games. San Francisco’s division lead stays 1 1/2 video games. Right here is Wade’s house run:

The Giants now have 13 pinch-hit house runs this season, by far probably the most in baseball. No different crew has greater than eight. Wade came to visit from the Twins in a minor offseason commerce and the outfielder/first baseman been a godsend for San Francisco. Saturday’s homer was his sixteenth of the 12 months and it raised his season batting line to .251/.324/.530.

Los Angeles has received 9 straight video games whereas the Giants are “merely” 6-3 of their final 9 video games. The Giants had a five-game lead as just lately as final Friday. Now it is all the way down to 1 1/2 video games, and it might have been a half-game if not for Wade’s heroics. San Francisco has been in first place since Might 31.

At 79-54, the Giants have the perfect report in baseball. It’s their finest report by means of 133 video games since 2003 (80-53), and with three extra wins, they are going to clinch their first profitable season since 2016. The Giants and Dodgers have only one head-to-head collection remaining (Sept. 3-5 in San Francisco).