LaMonte Wade Jr. leads another late comeback, SF Giants sweep Rockies at Coors Field

DENVER — During the Giants’ most demanding stretch of the 2021 season, the club played 16 consecutive games without an off day and navigated through series against three National League teams currently in position to make the playoffs.

The run finally ended Wednesday in Denver against a sub-.500 Rockies team, but a visit to Colorado was hardly an easy way to finish a grueling run. The Rockies, for all of their flaws, own one of the best home winning percentages in the majors and hadn’t been swept at Coors Field this season.

Then LaMonte Wade Jr. showed up.

With the Giants trailing 4-3 in the top of the ninth, Wade stepped up with the bases loaded and lined a two-strike single into right center field off a 99-mile per hour fastball off Carlos Estevez to push his team ahead by a run in a 7-4 comeback victory.

“(Estevez) has electric stuff and throws really, really hard,” Wade said. “His stuff is moving all over the place so you try to shrink him to the middle, go back up the middle with it and luckily I was able to do that.”

A rally that began with a pinch-hit leadoff walk from Buster Posey ended after Evan Longoria delivered a two-out, two-run double to left center field to score Wade and Brandon Belt and ultimately move the Giants to a season-high 40 games over .500 at 90-50.

The last time the Giants won 90 of their first 140 games was 1913.

“The Rockies are really good in this ballpark and in particular, it’s tough to come from behind when you’re at the end of a long grueling stretch of games,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “You really have to dig deep and you’ve got to have quite a bit of mental strength and toughness and I thought that’s exactly what happened.”

The Giants finished the 16-day stretch with a 10-6 record and will still be alone in first place in the NL West when they start their series with the Cubs on Friday in Chicago.

After Tony Watson and Tyler Rogers kept the Giants within a run of the Rockies with scoreless frames in the seventh and eighth innings, Jake McGee, a former Rockies reliever, picked up his 30th save.

During his short time with the Giants, Wade has established himself as one of the league’s best performers in clutch situations as he improved to 9-for-15 with nine RBIs in the ninth inning of games this season on Wednesday.

“It’s not on purpose,” Wade said. “I wish I could get some better at-bats early in the game, but I guess it’s good they’re coming late in the game.”

In at-bats classified as “high-leverage” by Baseball-Reference, Wade is hitting nearly .400 with an OPS above 1.000.

“I think what stands out is how selective he is,” Kapler said. “He’s just taking pitches he doesn’t feel like he can do something with and sometimes those pitches are strikes. Very similar to Darin Ruf where he’s able to go down in the count and trust he’s got enough bat speed, enough whip and enough power to get the ball in the air to the pull side.”

Wade’s contributions have played an overwhelming role in the Giants’ success this season, particularly for an outfield that’s been inconsistent and often dealing with injuries. A Giants team that’s already missing a pair of outfielders, Alex Dickerson and Austin Slater, due to injuries had to replace Mike Yastrzemski in the bottom of the eighth inning after the right fielder fouled a ball off his right ankle during an eighth-inning plate appearance.

Kapler said Yastrzemski had a right ankle contusion and will be considered “day-to-day.”

The Giants recorded just two hits in their first five innings against Colorado starter Jon Gray, but after falling behind 3-0 in the bottom of the fifth, San Francisco’s offense answered right back. Belt led off the inning with a bloop single into center field before Wade drilled a single through a vacant left side of the infield to bring Brandon Crawford to the plate.

The Giants’ most dangerous hitter with runners in scoring position sent the first pitch he saw from Gray over the left field wall for a game-tying, three-run homer. Crawford’s 20th home run of the season inched him closer to his career-high of 21 set in 2015 and gave him 80 RBIs, which is four shy of his final total from the 2015 and 2016 seasons.

“Especially after a good series against the Dodgers at home that was back and forth and emotional, I think there are times you can let your foot off the gas a little bit after a series like that,” Crawford said. “For us to come out and play really good baseball against a team that plays really well on this field is definitely a good thing.”

The Rockies scored their first three runs against Giants starter Anthony DeSclafani in the bottom of the fifth before catcher Elías Díaz gave the Rockies a 4-3 lead with a solo homer off Zack Littell in the seventh inning. The Giants didn’t answer immediately, but when Wade came to the plate in a big spot in the ninth, his teammates knew what to expect.

“He’s had so many big hits for us this year,” Crawford said of Wade. “Down to our last strike a couple of times I think and then just so many tie-breaking or go-ahead hits for us with runners in scoring position. He’s been a huge piece for us.”