A High Sign: Giants Saved by Thompson

After 2 1/2 hours of wild pitches and wild throws and a little infield break dancing, it was only fair that Saturday night’s National League playoff screamer ended like this:

In the seventh inning, a Chicago Cubs pitcher who forgot the count threw a fastball down the middle to a San Francisco batter who ignored a hit-and-run sign and hit a two-run, game-winning homer.

Les Lancaster was the pitcher who can’t add, Robby Thompson was the hero who can’t believe it, and the Giants were 5-4 winners to give them a two-games-to-one lead over the Cubs.

Tired of watching Jose Canseco? Welcome to the National League, where they play baseball for the human race.

“I’m having the time of my life,” Cub first baseman Mark Grace said with clenched teeth.

Before the largest crowd in Candlestick Park’s history--62,065 who began cheering the moment the human Christmas tree and Mr. Peanut finished singing the national anthem--the game came down to the seventh inning they won’t soon forget.

With the Cubs leading, 4-3, due to a wild Will Clark throw in the top of the inning--the third Giant error--Brett Butler hit a one-out single off Paul Assenmacher. Thompson then worked Assenmacher to a 1-and-0 count before Cub Manager Don Zimmer, ever unusual, brought in Lancaster.

Lancaster’s first pitch to Thompson was a ball, making it 2 and 0. The Giants put on the hit-and-run play, meaning Butler took off from first base while Thompson swung at whatever pitch came along.

“Whatever he did, Robby was supposed to hit the ball on the ground, making sure Butler can get at least to second base,” Giant hitting coach Dusty Baker said.

Thompson blew it. He saw an inside fastball, greedily thought he could hit a line drive, but then hit it too high. Or so he thought.

“I was just hoping the left fielder (Dwight Smith) wouldn’t run it down,” Thompson said.

Seconds later, Thompson’s fears were quelled when the ball kept sailing over the left-field fence and into Giant history. He had only 50 extra-base hits (including 12 homers) and 50 RBIs during the year, but has two homers and three RBIs in the playoffs.

“When I rounded first base, I heard the crowd and I looked up and saw that the left fielder wasn’t picking anything up and then I knew it,” said Thompson, whose ensuing run around the bases was reminiscent of Mickey Hatcher’s October sprints.

“I just wanted to get back in the dugout as soon as I could and lay on some high fives,” Thompson said. “I was just hoping I wouldn’t float over the plate.”

If he had, he would have collided with at least one teammate.

“It was crazy in the dugout--I was so excited, I’m just lucky I didn’t hit my head on the dugout roof,” said reliever Jeff Brantley, who threw three hitless innings.

Lancaster knew he was unlucky. But it wasn’t until a postgame interview that he realized just how unlucky.

“That wasn’t a pitch I wanted to throw on a 3-and-0 count,” Lancaster said.

Excuse me, somebody said. The count was 2 and 0.

“It wasn’t 3 and 0?” Lancaster said. “I thought the scoreboard said 3 and 0.”

Uh, no.

“Oh,” he said. “Well, I wouldn’t have thrown him that fastball on 2 and 0. I would have thrown him a breaking pitch or a slider. But I guess there’s nothing I can do about it now.”

The Cubs nearly did something about it in the eighth when this evenly matched series had another late-inning rally and another great play to end it.

After Grace had started the inning with a single off reliever and winner Don Robinson, Andre Dawson hit a routine fly to left field. What happened next was anything but routine, as Grace tried to sneak to second base after Kevin Mitchell made the catch.

In center field, Butler said he “screamed myself hoarse” yelling for Mitchell to throw it. Mitchell was so inspired, the throw hit Thompson’s glove on the fly, and Grace was tagged out.

If safe, Grace would probably have scored the tying run when the evening’s nonsense was capped on Luis Salazar’s ensuing line drive. Right fielder Donnell Nixon deftly avoided the ball, allowing it to hit off his glove and nearly roll to the wall, giving Salazar first base.

“It was my decision to run, if I make it I score, and I can live with that,” Grace said.

“Great throw, great ending,” Butler said. “This kind of game reminds you of the early ‘50s . . . it was a real throwback.”

Yeah, to the days of football without helmets. For those wondering about the starting pitchers in this game, both left with injuries and embarrassment. The Giants’ Mike LaCoss wild-pitched and stumbled and ultimately stomped his way out of the action in the fourth inning. The Cubs’ Rick Sutcliffe bobbled and balked and finally tripped his way out of the game in the sixth inning.

“You never know what will happen in the playoffs,” Giant Manager Roger Craig said. “You throw out all the books and all the scouting reports.”

Such as Saturday, when:

--The Cubs scored their first two runs when LaCoss couldn’t keep one curveball out of the dirt and couldn’t throw a good two-strike pitch to Dawson, who followed a wild pitch with a two-run single.

--The Giants came back by scoring three runs without hitting a ball hard enough to break a window in Jose Canseco’s sports car. This was because, in Sutcliffe’s attempt to pitch, he had forgotten how to catch.

Sutcliffe botched two grounders to the mound, one that scored a run, and another that led to two runs when he walked Candy Maldonado with the bases loaded and then allowed an infield-chop RBI single to Jose Uribe.

“It was hard to get my footing out there, the field was slick,” said Sutcliffe, who couldn’t complain about an otherwise perfect evening at Candlestick, with temperatures in the 70s and no wind.

“Weird,” Mitchell said of the weather. “You prepare yourself for the elements, and there ain’t no elements.”

--The Cubs tied the score in the fourth on a Brantley wild pitch. LaCoss had left with none out in the inning after spraining his left knee while bobbling a Joe Girardi grounder for an error. He will undergo a Magnetic Resonance Imaging test today and could be lost for the playoffs.

--The Cubs took the lead in the top of the seventh when Sutcliffe doubled, went to third when Will Clark threw a bunt into center field, and pinch-runner Greg Maddux walked home on a Ryne Sandberg fly ball.

Sutcliffe was replaced on base by Maddux because of a strained right thigh muscle that was injured when he fell over Matt Williams’ RBI grounder in the first.

“The way things had been going, it was best I leave then,” Sutcliffe said.

The Cubs need to come back beginning today at 5:15 p.m. in Game 4, pitting Maddux against the Giants’ Scott Garrelts. They need to win one of the next two games to send this series back to Chicago.