Giants beat Cardinals, 5-4, on 10th-inning error

For the second time in their last three victories, the San Francisco Giants won a postseason game on a crazy throw by the opposing pitcher.

The Giants could not be more thrilled. This plays into their mythology, and maybe even gets into the heads of the guys on the other team.

“We can score runs without hits,” coach Tim Flannery said. “We’ve proven that.”

This is how the Giants won Tuesday: Brandon Crawford walked. Juan Perez tried to bunt, failed, then singled. Gregor Blanco bunted, and St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Randy Choate almost threw the ball into San Francisco Bay.

Crawford scored on the throwing error. The Giants won in 10 innings, 5-4, and they are halfway to their third World Series in five years.

“Maybe we don’t have the best offensive team,” Blanco said. “Maybe we don’t have the best defensive team. Maybe we don’t have the best team in baseball. But we play with heart every single night, every single day.”

San Francisco leads the best-of-seven National League Championship Series two games to one and plays host in Game 4 on Wednesday.

“I call us the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band,” said Flannery, who sang the national anthem alongside two members of the Grateful Dead.

“They scratch and fight and claw. It’s not pretty. But, at the end of the day, they find ways to win.”

The Giants are more than happy to talk about how they can pitch but not hit, how they bunt to score however they can, how they have no power, how they manufacture runs and play so many one-run games.

None of this holds up in the statistics.

The Giants ranked fifth among the 15 NL clubs in runs. They ranked in the top half in home runs. They ranked last in stolen bases and in sacrifice bunts. They won the fewest one-run games and played the fewest too.

But they embraced the bunt Tuesday, when they had stopped hitting. The Giants scored four runs and had four hits in the first inning, and no runs and one hit — by pitcher Tim Hudson, no less — in the next eight innings.

So, when Crawford walked to start the 10th inning, the Giants twice deployed the sacrifice bunt, a play that has fallen out of vogue. But the bunt calls were absolutely right, and even a good play by Choate could have forced the Cardinals to face the Giants’ best hitters — Buster Posey and/or Pablo Sandoval — with runners in scoring position.

Although the sacrifice bunt is widely scorned among statistical analysts, Posey said the play is useful.

“Especially in this ballpark,” Posey said. “It can be hard to hit home runs, at times. I think the bunt comes into play here as much as it does in any ballpark.”

So Blanco bunted, and Choate overthrew first base.

“He did exactly what we wanted him to do,” Choate said. “I blew it. It took off on me, and it sailed down the line. I don’t remember feeling rushed or anything.”

Blanco sprinted around first base and headed for second, even though the winning run had scored, in trying to get away from his onrushing teammates.

“Especially from Pablo,” Blanco said. “He always hits me really hard. I was like, there’s no way he’s going to catch me.”

Did he?

“He did,” Blanco said with a smile.