We continue our "25 Greatest Oakland A's Wins" countdown with #23, a return to July 15, 1999 - one of the weirdest games in Oakland A’s and San Francisco Giants history. This messy, ridiculous and epic game included two terrible performances from starting pitchers, five 3-run homers, five double plays, 170 pitches thrown by Giants pitchers, 153 thrown by A’s pitchers, 11 total walks, 12 total strikeouts, and ONE unbelievable walk-off home run!
It had been almost seven years since the A’s had last played October baseball. Over that time frame, the A’s attendance had dropped dramatically. After setting an attendance record of nearly 3 million in 1990 (a record that would stand until the late 1990s), attendance would stay over 2 million until 1993, but from then on, attendance would not get over 1.5 million for a variety of reasons. The 1994 strike drove many baseball fans away from the ballpark, and Oakland was no different. Adding to the strike's attendance departure, the Coliseum’s renovation in 1996 with the Raiders moving back to Oakland muddied what was a gorgeous ballpark to so many. Finally, mediocre ball clubs that were put on the field thanks to a new ownership philosophy that began trading the key cogs of the great teams of the late 80s and early 90s resulted in a terrible fall from grace.
The 1999 A’s team seemed to be something that could start to change all that. By this mid-July game, the A’s seemed to really have a solid core of good young ballplayers with the likes of Jason Giambi, Miguel Tejada, Eric Chavez, and Tim Hudson starting to flourish. At this point in the season, the A’s were 43-44, and on pace to reach their best season since 1992, but they were still 5 games back from the first place, Texas Rangers. It was the first game after the All-Star Break and the first place San Francisco Giants were coming into town.
On the mound for the A’s was the veteran, Kenny Rogers. After a tremendous 1998 campaign for the A’s where he finished the year 16-8 with a 3.17 ERA, 1999 was not too kind to Kenny Rogers. This start would be no different for Rogers, as he went 4.1 IP, giving up 9 ER and 2 HRs with Rich Aurilia and JT Snow being the catalysts of “bye, bye, baby” (both being 3-run home runs). This horrible start was given an exclamation point by the 5th inning, where Rogers gave up 5 runs, two coming off a Jeff Kent double, and the other 3 coming from a JT Snow 3-run home run. Rogers would make one more start with the A’s, before he was traded on July 23rd to the New York Mets for a package that included the hero from last week's post, Terrence Long.
Luckily for the A’s, the Giants starter, Shawn Estes did no better. After being spotted a 4-0 lead by Kenny Rogers, Shawn Estes gave it all back by the bottom of the fourth, a 3-run home run by Jason Giambi in the second and a Giambi sacrifice fly in the 4th providing the damage. With Rogers blowing up before Estes and giving the Giants a 9-4 lead in the 5th, Estes was able to survive longer than Rogers did. That was until the 7th inning, Estes appeared to have settled in, retiring 6 of the last 7 batters he had faced since last giving up a run in the fourth. The damage began with Miguel Tejada singling with 2 outs, making it runners on first and third with 39 year old Tim Raines coming to the plate. The former Montreal Expos star singled home Jason McDonald to make it 9-5, Giants Manager Dusty Baker made the move to the bullpen for the much maligned reliever, Julian Tavarez. And in typical Julian Tavarez fashion, he set fire to the Giants lead as he gave up a 3-run home run to John Jaha to make the score 9-8 Giants. I really don’t remember there ever being a time where Julian Tavarez was considered a quality relief pitcher, 1999 was certainly no different as he ended the year with a 5.93 ERA in 54.2 IP. In this game, he had faced one batter and failed, while at the same time giving all of Estes’ inherited runners to the scoreboard and making Shawn Estes’s final line read: 6.2 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 7 K’s, 5 BBs in 111 pitches. Alan Embree would go onto replace Tavarez and he’d go onto strikeout Matt Stairs to end the inning with the damage already done, all with two outs.
One overlooked part of this game that shouldn't go unnoticed is the brilliant work by the A’s bullpen, the combination of Brad Rigby, Chad Harville, Buddy Groom, and Doug Jones gave a tremendous performance to A’s Manager Art Howe, and would collectively put together a line of 4.2 IP, 2 H, 1 BB, 3 K’s, and most importantly 0 R. The A’s bullpen effectively cleaned up Kenny Rogers’ mess and had given the A’s a chance to come back.
According to baseball-reference.com, the San Francisco Giants had a 97% chance of winning with 2 outs in the bottom of the 7th, but after Jaha’s 3-run home run to make it 9-8, that percentage shrunk down to 71%. The teams would fail to tack on from the bottom of the 7th forward, and heading into the bottom of the 9th with the score 9-8 Giants, Giants closer Robb Nen was coming into the game to shut the door on the A’s and earn the save.
Robb Nen would end up tallying 314 saves in his career and was a favorite of Giants' play-by-play announcer, Duane Kuiper. His career ended way too soon, and my first memories of the Giants seemed to always be tied to Robb Nen in some way. This night may be one of the reasons for that, Nen would be facing the A’s 2-3-4 hitters. First up was Miguel Tejada. Miggy would battle with the Giants closer before striking out after 6 pitches for the first out of the 9th. The A’s winning percentage was now down to 12%, next up came Tim Raines, Raines didn’t even bother to take pitches until he got a strike (which is usual protocol when down in the 9th inning) as he torched a pitch into right field for a single and to give the A’s some new life. The 39 year old then did something that made himself seem 15 years younger, on a 1-0 pitch to John Jaha, he stole second base off of Giants catcher Scott Servais bringing the count to 2-0 on Jaha and the tying run to second. Nen would lay an egg to the A’s designated hitter who seemed hotter than a firecracker, as he walked him on four pitches. The tying run was on second, the winning run was on first, and there was only one out.
Next up came the immortal Matt Stairs, the Canadian was only 31 years old at the time and he was definitely loved by A’s fans for his “normal guy” charm. Stairs would not fare well in this clutch situation, as he fanned on four pitches, staring at strike three. Two outs.
A’s fans were starting to fear that they were being teased as the rather unknown Olmedo Saenz was coming to the plate. The Panamanian was beginning to show flashes of promise, but with Stairs’ bad at bat, one could not expect a whole lot. Maybe the A’s could get a single and tie the game? Sure, that would be fantastic. First pitch was a ball, Saenz once again followed the same approach that Tim Raines followed a couple batters before, with the count at 1-0, he stayed aggressive and he belted Nen’s pitch high into the icy Oakland sky.....could it be?
IT SURE WAS. The ball soared over the head of Giants centerfielder, F.P. Santangelo and over the left-center field fence for a 3-run walk-off home run. The A’s had won 11-9, and had overcome a 5 run deficit to win over their Cross-Bay rivals.
The big Panamanian was swarmed at home plate, surely that was the biggest hit in his life to date and to this day. And luckily for Saenz, his family was in the building from Panama, and they had never seen him play in the big leagues before.
The significance of this game goes even deeper. The Giants had enjoyed some late 1990s dominance in Bay Area baseball. The Giants had been putting a good product on the field while the A’s were tumbling in mediocrity. This moment was, in many ways, the sign that a changing of the guard was certainly on the way. The A’s were giving the bay area a glimpse of a team on the rise.
After this game, the Giants went 36-37 to end the year and they finished 2nd in the NL West behind the 100 win, Arizona Diamondbacks. The A’s on the other hand would go 43-31 after that game and would finish second behind the 95 win, Rangers. The A’s were trending up, and they’d go on to win the division the very next year, but we’ll talk about that a little later.
Olmedo Saenz. It was only his fourth home run in an A’s uniform and none were bigger.
Unfortunately, pictures and videos from this game are nearly nonexistent. If you have some from your own photo albums, please post for everyone to see! Next week, Win #22. Stay tuned!
-- Wes
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