October 3, 1993: Dodgers turn the tables on rival Giants in season finale

The 1993 Los Angeles Dodgers didn’t win the World Series, the National League pennant, or the NL West Division. Truth is, they were a .500 ballclub. But after a season-ending 12-1 blitzkrieg of the rival San Francisco Giants leveled their record at 81-81, the Dodgers couldn’t help but celebrate as though they had achieved something grander.

That’s because the Dodgers prevented the Giants from reaching postseason play despite winning 103 games.1 San Francisco finished one game behind the Atlanta Braves. Had the Giants beaten Los Angeles in the season finale, they would have hosted the Braves (104-58) in a one-game tiebreaker to determine the NL West champion.2 It was the eighth time in major-league history that a 100-plus-win team finished in second place.

Before the game, Los Angeles general manager Fred Claire and manager Tom Lasorda educated their players on the fact that the Giants had spoiled Dodgers’ playoff possibilities three times on this very date – October 3 – in 1951, 1962, and 1982, as well as more recently during the final weekend of the 1991 season.3

“They talked about those seasons, but I don’t think they had to,” said Dodgers center fielder Brett Butler, a Los Angeles native who played for the Giants from 1988 to 1990. “We wanted to beat them anyway.”4

San Francisco had won the first three games of the four-game series at Dodger Stadium (3-1, 8-7, and 5-3), extending its surge to 14 victories in 16 games. But that came on the heels of an 11-18 stretch as the Giants went from leading the division by nine games over the Braves on August 11 to trailing by four games on September 17.5

The finale was played on a sun-splashed Sunday afternoon with a first-pitch temperature of 86 degrees. The Dodgers started 11-year veteran Kevin Gross, while the Giants countered with 21-year-old rookie Salomón Torres, who was appearing in his eighth major-league game with a 3-4 record and a 3.70 ERA.6 San Francisco boasted the NL’s most potent offense,7 buoyed by its heart of the order: first baseman Will Clark (.283 batting average for the season, 14 home runs, 73 RBIs); third baseman Matt Williams (.294, 38 homers, 110 RBIs); and left fielder Barry Bonds (.336 and league-highs of 46 homers and 123 RBIs).

Gross handcuffed the Giants from top to bottom, start to finish – allowing six hits (all singles) while pitching his third complete game of the season. He walked one and struck out five en route to finishing with a 13-13 record and a 4.14 ERA. Clark, Williams, and Bonds were a combined 2-for-11 with a walk and three strikeouts.

“I wanted to stick it to them one more time,” said Gross, a native of Downey, California, in southeastern Los Angeles County, who no-hit the Giants on August 17, 1992. “It was our turn at payback after everything they’ve done to us.”8

San Francisco’s Dave Martinez and Royce Clayton singled with one out in the second inning, but Kirk Manwaring grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to thwart an early scoring threat.

The game was scoreless in the third when the Dodgers got to Torres. Gross singled leading off, took second on a sacrifice by Butler and third on a groundout by José Offerman, and scored on a single by Dave Hansen. All-Star rookie catcher Mike Piazza walked, and Eric Karros followed with a run-scoring double to deep left-center field to give Los Angeles a 2-0 lead.

An RBI bloop single by Offerman in the fourth scored Jody Reed, who had walked, making it 3-0 and knocking out Torres. In 3⅓ innings, Torres gave up five hits and walked five batters while recording one strikeout.

The Giants scored their lone run in the fifth. Clayton and Manwaring singled, and relief pitcher Trevor Wilson laid down a sacrifice bunt that put runners on second and third. Clayton scored as Darren Lewis grounded out to first.

It was all Dodgers the rest of the way. Piazza led off the bottom of the fifth with a first-pitch home run to the right-field pavilion off Dave Burba. Three batters later, Cory Snyder, who was born in Inglewood, California, in southwestern Los Angeles County, and played for the Giants the previous season, belted a two-run homer to the right-center pavilion, widening the gap to 6-1.

Karros made it 7-1 in the sixth with an RBI single off Michael Jackson, and the Dodgers put an exclamation point on the cockeyed victory in the eighth with a three-run homer by Piazza to deep right field off Dave Righetti and a two-run shot by rookie Raúl Mondesi to deep left off Jim Deshaies. With their .261 team batting average, the Dodgers ranked 10th in the NL, but they collected 14 hits and drew 10 walks against seven San Francisco pitchers.

“As it turned out, we ran out of pitchers,” said first-year Giants manager Dusty Baker, an outfielder for the Dodgers from 1976 to 1983. “We had some tired guys. Everyone was running on empty.”9

Meanwhile, Gross retired 15 of the last 16 Giants he faced, allowing only a sixth-inning leadoff single by Clark, in the 3-hour, 6-minute game.

Piazza, the Dodgers’ 62nd-round draft pick in 1988, concluded his first full season in the majors with a Los Angeles-record 35 home runs10 while also topping the team with a .318 batting average and 112 RBIs.11 Among NL batters, Piazza ranked fourth in RBIs, sixth in homers, and seventh in batting average, and he joined Roy Campanella (three times), Gabby Hartnett, and Walker Cooper as the only major-league catchers to have at least a .300 average, 30 homers, and 100 RBIs. After warming up Gross in the ninth inning, Piazza was removed from the game so he could be acknowledged by the sellout crowd of 54,340.12

“Mike had a tremendous year,” Lasorda said. “That ovation at the end by the fans was beautiful. He really deserved that.”13

Piazza went on to be named NL Rookie of the Year and win a Silver Slugger Award.

“The whole year the guys helped a lot, keeping me focused and making me feel like I didn’t have to produce, and that helped me to concentrate on catching,” said Piazza, who enjoyed a 16-year big-league career and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2016. “It’s been a little overwhelming at times, all the attention and all, but I’m happy I established myself here.”14

One year after finishing last in the NL West with 99 losses, Los Angeles moved up to fourth place (23 games behind the Braves). They won the season series over San Francisco, 7-6, for the first time since 1989.

“Maybe this won’t make up for the season we had, but, for now, it means a lot,” infielder Lenny Harris said. “It’s a payback. We spoiled their party. There’s nothing like returning the favor.”15

Lasorda delighted in the moment, giving hugs and blowing kisses.

“I know it’s a sad time for the Giants,” Lasorda said. “They won 103 games and did a sensational job. But when we look back at what they did to us four times, we wanted to let them know what the feeling was like. We had to hang our heads a few times. Now it’s their turn.”16

For the Giants, the close-but-no-champagne ending marked the culmination of an 11-month roller-coaster ride. On November 10, 1992, his fellow NL owners rejected Bob Lurie’s deal to sell the franchise to a group of Florida investors, who would have moved the Giants to St. Petersburg for the 1993 season. Ten days later, Lurie sold the team to a San Francisco group, led by Peter Magowan, and Al Rosen resigned as general manager. Roger Craig was fired as manager on November 30 and replaced by Baker, who had been the team’s hitting coach the preceding four seasons. Magowan and new general manager Bob Quinn promptly made headlines by signing Bonds to a six-year contract worth a then-record $43.75 million on December 8, sparking the organization and its fans.

The Giants, who were in sole possession of first place from May 11 to September 10, became the first team to win 103 games and finish second since the 1954 New York Yankees and the first 100-win club to not finish first since the 1980 Baltimore Orioles. They won more games than any second-place NL team since the 1942 Brooklyn Dodgers.17 [In 1994, the major leagues switched from two divisions to three and added a wild-card team (the nondivision winner with the best record) to the playoffs.]

“This has been a real team,” said Baker, who was named NL Manager of the Year after piloting the Giants to a 31-game improvement over the 1992 season. “Everyone has contributed. We just fell one game short.

“This is like going to the prom and you can’t go inside.”18

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted the Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites for pertinent material and the box scores. He also reviewed a recording of the ESPN telecast posted on YouTube.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/LAN/LAN199310030.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1993/B10030LAN1993.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDhheliM-Y4

Notes

1 The 103 wins were tied for the most in San Francisco Giants history and tied for third most in franchise annals at the time. The 1962 team also won 103 games (including two in a three-game tiebreaker series against the Dodgers), as did the 1912 New York Giants. The New York Giants won 106 games in 1904 and 105 games in 1905. Subsequently, the 2021 San Francisco Giants won 107 games.

2 The Braves beat the expansion Colorado Rockies, 5-3, in Atlanta on the season’s final day – completing a 13-0 season sweep – and then watched the Giants-Dodgers game on ESPN in their clubhouse at Atlanta Fulton County Stadium.

3 In 1951 and 1962, the Giants won three-game tiebreaker series against the Dodgers to capture the NL pennant. In 1982, the Giants eliminated the Dodgers from NL West Division title contention. And on October 5, 1991, the Giants eliminated the Dodgers from the division race.

4 Terry Johnson, “One Giant Dose of Revenge,” San Pedro (California) News-Pilot, October 4, 1993: B1.

5 The Giants’ biggest division lead of the season was 10 games on July 22. The Braves went 54-19 after the All-Star break and won their third consecutive NL West title. They lost to the Philadelphia Phillies in the NLCS in six games.

6 Torres was the losing pitcher in the Giants’ previous three defeats (September 15, 21, and 29), spanning 17 games.

7 In 1993, San Francisco led the NL with a .276 batting average and a .427 slugging percentage and ranked second with 808 runs.

8 Mark Langill, “L.A. Crushes Giants’ Pennant Hopes, 12-1,” Pasadena Star-News, October 4, 1993: C1.

9 Larry Stone, “100 Wins Not Enough,” San Francisco Examiner, October 4, 1993: D-1.

10 The previous Los Angeles record for home runs was 33 by Steve Garvey (1977) and Pedro Guerrero (1985). Duke Snider held the franchise record at the time with 43 homers for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956.

11 Piazza’s .318 batting average was the ninth highest in Los Angeles history, while his 112 RBIs were tied for the third-most by an NL rookie at the time.

12 The crowd was the largest for a Sunday afternoon game in Dodger Stadium history at the time.

13 “Dodgers Notebook,” Pasadena Star-News, October 4, 1993: C4.

14 Maryann Hudson, “Dodgers Make It Worth Braves’ Wait,” Los Angeles Times, October 4, 1993: C1.

15 Terry Johnson, “One Giant Dose of Revenge.”

16 “One Giant Dose of Revenge.”

17 The 1954 Yankees went 103-51 and finished eight games behind the Cleveland Indians in the American League, while the 1980 Orioles went 100-62 and finished three games behind the Yankees in the AL East Division. The 1942 Dodgers went 104-50-1 and finished two games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL.

18 Mike Waldner, “Baker’s Boys Settle for Second,” San Pedro News-Pilot, October 4, 1993: B1.