Alex Cobb, Thairo Estrada lead Giants previous Brewers 4-1

When I wrote the game thread for today’s contest between the San Francisco Giants and the Milwaukee Brewers, I was optimistic. It was hard not to.

First, I looked at Alex Cobb’s stats. He’s having a wonderful season – one that should deserve All-Star consideration if he continues like this. And he’s been particularly brilliant in his last two appearances, knocking out the St. Louis Cardinals in an entire game and then looking like he’d serve up the San Diego Padres in a normal park in Mexico City’s ridiculous elevation.

And he faced a Brewers lineup that was… look, the Brewers are a good team. There’s no way around it. But it’s not because of her insult. When I wrote the game thread, I entered the OPS+ number for each player in each grid.

For those new to OPS+, it measures offensive performance and places it on a scale where 100 is the league average. 110 is 110% as good as the league average, 90 is 90% as good as the league average, and so on and so on.

Six of the Brewers starters had an OPS+ under 100. Five of them had an OPS+ under 90. In addition, five of them were right-handed.

On paper, it was a matchup that Cobb should have dominated. But baseball never really goes together like that, so I kept my thoughts to myself.

Unless it worked out that way. It worked exactly like that.

Cobb started the game in cruise control and stayed there through the fourth inning when he hit a pretty funny obstacle in the middle of the road.

After making a second throw to first base, one of the umpires forgot how to count and claimed a violation on the third throw. Cobb and Gabe Kapler protested, the umpires met and ruled that it was only the second throw and it was longer an infraction.

Short message: I have no idea if it was the second or third step. The people covering the Giants seemed to be a different number than the people covering the Brewers. I’ll take the Giants angle. It’s funnier.

The Brewers didn’t like it, leading to the funniest moment of the season: Brewers manager Craig Counsell and bench coach Pat Murphy both in full-blown arguments with different umpires at once. It was adorable.

Counsell was quickly thrown down and delightfully enjoyed himself.

Cobb stood on the hill the whole time, his arm getting cold, his body tense. You were wondering how he would react to an unexpected delay of about five minutes.

Not good, at least initially. He finished the plate appearance with a walk and put down two runners with no outs. It was danger time. And after scoring two outs, he allowed a single one to load the bases and the Brewers were one shot away from changing the game entirely. We’ve seen that so many times this year with the Giants. That usually doesn’t go so well.

It went well this time. Cobb worked a ground ball that JD Davis tucked away beautifully — as he has consistently done this season — and his clean pitching line stayed.

And when the road was cleared, Cobb was able to find his cruise control button again and glide through the fifth, sixth and seventh innings unscathed and virtually untouched. It was another masterful performance and we expected it, which makes it no less.

Along the way, the Giants gave him the support he needed. They batted first in a two-out rally in the second inning when Michael Conforto pulled off a brilliant walk and drained his gas tank to score on a double by Joey Bart.

The next few runs came an inning later and a little smoother as Thairo Estrada — likely in line for the first All-Star appearance of his career — fell 0-2 down the count, only to recover and undoubtedly hit a two -Run run home.

It felt like enough, and it was. But why settle for enough when you can have great stories? So I bring you one of baseball’s greatest joys: the first career home run. This is courtesy of Brett Wisely, who also played an excellent game on second base.

If you don’t like that, then you don’t like baseball.

Speaking of liking baseball, it always bothers you a bit. That’s part of the fascination. After Taylor Rogers broke through the eighth and sent the Giants 4-0 into the ninth, John Brebbia came on.

Something was wrong with Brebbia. He threw balls in 10 of his first 12 fields and eventually the coaching staff came to check on him. He opted for a strikeout but then gave up an RBI single that put the tie on the plate.

Camilo Doval came in. With, again, the binding to the plate run.

That tie run was Tyrone Taylor sitting on a Doval sinker and hitting him at 101.1 mph and 357 feet. It found Cal Stevenson’s glove in midfield.

Then the crucial run Christian Yelich, sitting on a 1-1 slider and hitting him at 101.7 mph and 381 feet, was enough to leave Wrigley Field if the game had been there (which would have been very odd were). It also found Cal Stevenson’s glove in midfield.

Both bat hits stopped your heart. But neither slugger did anything other than put another on the board and give the Giants a 4-1 win.

It’s a four-game win streak. It’s the second win in a row against a very good team. And now they can set off.

Not a bad day at the office.

Happy birthday Willie Mays.

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