http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/15/sports/baseball/san-francisco-giants-st-louis-cardinals-nlcs-mlb-playoffs.html 2014-10-15 03:22:48 The Wind, a Wall and a Wide Throw Foil the Cardinals San Francisco squandered a four-run lead but won when St. Louis reliever Randy Choate, after fielding Gregor Blanco’s bunt, threw the ball away. === SAN FRANCISCO — The wall in right field at AT&T; Park is a misnomer. A ballpark wall is usually smooth and flat, sometimes with a gentle curve. This one is not. It veers in a zigzag line from 305 feet at the foul pole to 421 feet in right-center, turning the usual gap between outfielders into a lush green welcome mat for triples. The wall, which rises as high as 24 feet, has acute edges and obtuse angles. It is covered in brick, foam padding, chain link and advertising. On days when the wind blows hard off San Francisco Bay, navigating the wall becomes especially tricky. It was one of those blustery days Tuesday. Not only did the wall take center stage, turning the promising The latest came when the Giants squandered a four-run lead, then beat the Cardinals, 5-4, in 10 innings when reliever Randy Choate threw Gregor Blanco’s sacrifice bunt down the right-field line, allowing Brandon Crawford to score from second. Juan Perez failed in two attempts to get down a bunt before singling to shallow left to advance Crawford, who had led off with a walk, to second base, and bring up Blanco. It was a fitting finish for the Giants, who in their division-series-clinching win over the Washington Nationals scored their runs on a walk, a ground out and a wild pitch. It was a crushing blow for St. Louis, which, as it has throughout the playoffs, rallied to get back into the game. The Giants lead the series by two games to one, with Game 4 on Wednesday in San Francisco. The Cardinals found themselves in a hole early thanks to Grichuk’s travails with the wall. He was turned inside and out, losing track of Travis Ishikawa’s bases-clearing drive that bounced off the base of the wall and extended the Giants’ lead to 4-0 in the first inning. Grichuk gained a measure of atonement later by hitting a home run off the left-field pole in the seventh that drew the Cardinals even at 4-4. But as much as the wall hurt the Cardinals, it also helped them. When Kolten Wong sent an 0-1 pitch deep to right-center in the fourth, it was Pence’s turn to lose the ball in the wind and the wall. Pence, who has spent two and a half seasons in San Francisco, is not a novice to the conditions, but he looked like one. He drifted and turned toward the notch in the wall. But when he did, he lost track of the ball, and the wind carried it toward center and around the corner from where he was. The ball hit off the wall, two runs scored and Wong cruised into third, the Cardinals cutting their deficit to 4-2. “The wall’s tricky,” Grichuk said before playing right field here for the first time. “It’s a big gap, for sure, and the ball can bounce off in any direction, and there’s so many angles out there. The way the wind is today, taking fly balls out there, you really have to keep your eye on it because the ball has a mind of its own up there.” The wind was often a factor, but it was not always a hindrance to the outfielders. The center fielders, the Cardinals’ Jon Jay and the Giants’ Blanco, were thankful the wind held up several liners into right-center field long enough for the fielders to track them down. One of those drives came in the first inning, when the Giants’ Joe Panik ripped a ball to right-center that the wind carried back to Jay, who made a diving catch. It seemed like unfortunate luck for the Giants, who had only four first-inning hits in the entire postseason entering Tuesday. But Buster Posey and Pablo Sandoval singled, and Pence lashed a double down the right-field line, scoring Posey. If Cardinals starter John Lackey was not pleased with that, he did not hide his displeasure when the umpire Gerry Davis ruled that his 1-0 curveball to Brandon Belt did not catch part of the plate. Manager Mike Matheny instructed catcher A. J. Pierzynski to talk to Lackey and make sure he was settled. But after another ball, Belt was intentionally walked to load the bases. That set the stage for Ishikawa, a stopgap in left field after Mike Morse missed nearly all of September with a strained oblique. Ishikawa, who was considering retirement earlier this season when he was in Class AAA and not playing, had never started a major league game in the outfield until the final series of the regular season. But Ishikawa, who has four hits in the series, crushed a first-pitch fastball to deep right-center field, the ball bouncing off the base of the wall to drive in three runs. But being behind was nothing new to the Cardinals. They rallied three times to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in their division series, including twice against Clayton Kershaw, and had to come back twice to beat the Giants on Sunday. They gradually pecked away at Tim Hudson on Tuesday, getting two runs back on Wong’s two-out triple in the fourth, and closing to within 4-3 in the sixth when Jhonny Peralta’s two-out grounder bounced over the glove of Sandoval at third for a hit. Grichuk’s homer an inning later brought them even. The Cardinals arrived having lost home-field advantage, knowing that they would have to win at least one of the three games to send the series back to St. Louis, and that they would have to do it without their anchor, catcher Yadier Molina. He was forced to leave Game 2 after straining a left oblique muscle. Cardinals third baseman Matt Carpenter and the Giants’ Morse each missed a month with that injury. Molina and Matheny raised the possibility that Molina might be able to catch, but he could not swing a bat. “It’s just going to be dealing with the pain and figuring out how he can and if he can do the different movements we need him to make,” Matheny said.