‘Metallica Night’ At The Giants Game On Tuesday Was Wild For A Number Of Reasons

The 9th annual “Metallica Night” went down at Oracle Park in San Francisco on Tuesday evening and it was a wild one. The San Francisco Giants were taking on the New York Mets, and Metallica, who are originally from the “City By The Bay,” were front and center for much of the evening.

Band members James Hetfield and Kirk Hammett shredded their way through the “Star Spangled Banner,” wowing the crowd with riffs that could unmistakably only come from a Metallica guitar. Hetfield even threw out the game’s first pitch, easily getting the ball across the plate (are you taking notes, Steve Aoki?). The sold-out crowd was greeted with a commemorative T-shirt along with their tickets to a game that featured a whopping 37 hits. It’s what went down late in the ballgame, though, that showed that the heavy metal magic was truly in the air.

The Giants were sporting a comfortable 8-4 lead heading into the 8th inning. However, the Mets blew up the SF bullpen for seven runs in the top of the 8th, capped off by a bases-clearing triple by Francisco Lindor, which Joc Pederson misplayed off the wall. Pederson, who already had two home runs in the game, would come back in the bottom of the inning to hit his 3rd, a Bonds-ian shot to deep right that landed straight into McCovey Cove and tied the game at 11. The Mets took a 12-11 lead in the top of the 9th, when Pederson stepped up to the plate in the bottom of the inning for a game tying RBI single. Brandon Crawford followed him with a walk-off hit and the Giants ended their five-game losing streak.

It was about as insane of an ending as we’ve seen this year in baseball and Pederson revealed late in the game that he spent the afternoon talking to Barry Bonds about hitting. It’s tough to say who gets the credit for the save here, Metallica or Bonds? An official scorer’s ruling is pending.