Jason Giambi emerged from the crowd of teammates at home plate, missing his helmet, with his shirt coming untucked and unbuttoned. The veteran slugger saw his manager, grinning and jogging his way with arms extended.
Manager Terry Francona embraced Giambi, who then hoisted his manager into the air.
It was a moment of pure joy.
“It was fun until it hurt,” Francona joked. “And then it was like, ‘OK, put me down.'”
On Monday night, Giambi carried Cleveland to a 3-2 victory over the White Sox in walk-off fashion, ending an evening that began with strong starting pitching. The 42-year-old veteran came off the bench as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning, crushing a slider from Chicago reliever Ramon Troncoso that hung too long in the wrong part of the strike zone.
For Giambi, the pitch was in the perfect position for his seemingly ageless swing.
“Gorgeous, wasn’t it?” Indians first baseman Nick Swisher said.
The win was the fifth in a row for the Indians, who moved 2 1/2 games back of the American League Central-leading Tigers, who were idle on Monday. Cleveland (57-48) has notched 10 victories in its past 14 games, largely due to the type of strong starting pitching performance that Zach McAllister turned in against Chicago.
When Giambi’s towering home run disappeared into the trees beyond the center-field wall, he became the oldest player in Major League history to launch a walk-off shot, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Hank Aaron previously held that record with his game-winning blast off Texas’ Steve Foucault on July 11, 1976.
“I wasn’t trying to do too much,” Giambi said. “I just wanted to see it and kind of hit it. I got a pitch up in the strike zone and ended up catching up to it.”
That was a humble reaction for a man with 436 career homers on his resume.
“He’s been doing that for a while,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “He’s over there for a reason.”
Giambi’s batting average on the season only sits at .194, but he now boasts seven home runs and 24 RBIs in 124 at-bats, and brings the kind of leadership that is impossible to quantify.
“You could fill up a book,” Francona said, “because I keep trying to say how I feel about him, and I just don’t feel like I ever quite get there. That’s how valuable I feel like he is to our team.”
For five innings, it appeared as though Cleveland’s 1-0 advantage would be sufficient for McAllister.
Cleveland entered Monday’s meeting with Chicago (40-63) having logged consecutive shutouts, giving the Indians a Major League-high 17 blankings on the season. After five scoreless innings to open his outing against the White Sox, McAllister pushed the Tribe’s scoreless streak to 26 innings.
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