Standing in the batter’s box with the game on the line, facing a man with a 100-m.p.h. fastball, Moises Alou had to cast aside the fact that he had no hits in eight playoff at-bats.
“Those last at-bats really didn’t mean anything,” said Alou, mobbed by his teammates and cheered for several minutes by most of the 41,283 at Pro Player Stadium. “My thought was, `I have everything to gain and nothing to lose.’ “
“Actually I was 0 for 0 in my mind,” the Marlins left-fielder said in the after-glow of a pulsating 7-6 victory over the San Francisco Giants, made possible by his two-out, ninth-inning single against reliever Roberto Hernandez.
The dramatic finish–similar to Tuesday’s Marlins victory when Edgar Renteria hit the game-winner with two out in the ninth–gives Florida a 2-0 lead in the best-of-five division series, with the teams resuming play Friday in San Francisco.
Alou’s hit up the middle scored Gary Sheffield, who had singled to open the ninth inning and stolen second. Dante Powell’s throw from center field was in line and appeared to have a chance to get Sheffield–who had gotten a slow start on Alou’s hit–but it hit the mound and bounced up.
“It looked like it had a good chance of getting him,” Giants manager Dusty Baker said.
For the Giants, a major-league best 43-28 in games decided by one or two runs in the regular season, this was their second straight playoff loss in that category.
Marlins manager Jim Leyland marveled at how his club put together a rally against Hernandez after San Francisco had tied the game in the top of the ninth on two errors.
“It’s the most amazing thing to me that a guy can even throw a ball 100 m.p.h.,” Leyland said. “That’s hard enough. But then to be able to hit it hard somewhere, that’s just as amazing.”
The Marlins had plenty of contributors in this game. Ex-Met Bobby Bonilla and Sheffield each had three hits, with Bonilla driving in three runs and Sheffield one–with a home run.
Of course Alou did his part at the end. And then there was rookie pitcher Livan Hernandez, 9-3 in the regular season but demoted to the bullpen for the playoffs. He surrendered three hits and a run over four innings as Florida began to assert itself defensively.
“The job he did was the key to the ballgame,” Leyland said.
Al Leiter had gotten the start for Florida because of his superior home performance, but he never developed any consistency, allowing four runs and seven hits with three walks over four innings.
Fellow lefty Shawn Estes didn’t fare any better. The Giants starter left after a shaky three-plus innings, but was spared the loss by San Francisco’s late heroics.
“I’ve said all along that our guys never give up,” Baker said. “And we found a way to stay in the game.”
