SAN FRANCISCO — Wilmer Flores had the best night of his career on Friday night. The Athletics apparently forgot it happened.
With two on and two outs in the 10th inning Saturday, the A’s intentionally walked Mike Yastrzemski to face Flores, who hit three homers and drove in eight runs just a few hours earlier. The Giants’ best clutch hitter fouled off a couple of 103 mph fastballs from A’s closer Mason Miller before drawing a walk that pushed across the only run in a fabulously pitched game on both sides.
WALK-OFF WILMER 🔥 pic.twitter.com/7X8BGQYHDQ
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 18, 2025
With the walk, Flores moved one ahead of Aaron Judge for the MLB lead in RBI. With the 1-0 win, the Giants got back to eight games above .500 and clinched the series on a night when their bullpen was about as efficient as it gets.
Landen Roupp took the shutout through six and Randy Rodriguez, Tyler Rogers and Ryan Walker cruised through the next three innings. The three relievers needed just 20 pitches to get their nine consecutive outs, and 19 of them were strikes.
On the other side, right-hander Luis Severino matched Roupp, but the Giants looked like they might get something going against reliever Justin Sterner in the bottom of the eighth.
Speedy No. 9 hitter Tyler Fitzgerald reached with a leadoff single and took off on a 3-2 pitch to Mike Yastrzemski. It was strike three, and A’s catcher Shea Langeliers made a perfect throw down to second to nail Fitzgerald.
Camilo Doval came on for the top of the 10th and stranded the automatic runner. When he struck out Brent Rooker, he took a huge hop off the mound before strutting back to the dugout with his 17th consecutive scoreless appearance.
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For the first time in his career, Roupp went at least six innings without allowing a run. In fact, this was just the third scoreless start out of his 13 in the big leagues, and his first this season.
Roupp dealt with plenty of traffic, allowing five hits and walking two, but he always had an answer with his back against the wall. With two on and no outs in the second, he got a liner to center, strikeout and grounder to second. With a runner on in the first, he struck out a pair to end the threat. A pop-up and strikeout stranded runners in the fourth, and he struck out Luis Urias to end the sixth — and his night — with a runner on first.
Roupp entered the night with a 1.53 difference between his ERA and xERA. Like Jordan Hicks, who was removed from the rotation, he has pitched a bit better than the raw numbers, and on Saturday the results were there, too.
Typical Randy
Speaking of xERA, Rodriguez is ninth in the majors, sandwiched between dominant American League closers Jhoan Duran and Andres Muñoz. His actual ERA after a 1-2-3 seventh inning is down to 0.96, and nothing about it feels flukey.
Rodriguez breezed through the seventh, putting up a scoreless outing for the 17th time in 18 appearances. When he was coming through the minors, Rodriguez’s issue was command, but at some point last April that locked into place and he became a trusted reliever.
On Saturday he threw nine pitches and all were strikes, including six sliders. His fastball sat at 98 mph. The Giants bullpen has been excellent all year long, and the middle-inning guys are a big part of the reason.
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Rodriguez can’t crack the eighth because Tyler Rogers is having his best season as a big leaguer, and Saturday’s eighth was his easiest yet.
Rogers needed just four pitches to get through the inning, inducing three groundball outs. The submariner has his highest strikeout rate since 2020, but when he’s out there he’s looking for groundballs, and this was as good as it gets given that he faced the heart of the A’s lineup. Rooker bounced the first pitch of the inning back to the mound and Rogers got an easy first out.
Tyler Soderstrom also bounced a sinker back to the mound but it was just over Rogers’ glove; Willy Adames was right there for the second out. After taking a pitch, Shea Langeliers hit a hard shot to first that LaMonte Wade Jr. stopped with a dive. With that, Rogers lowered his ERA to 1.27.
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