The San Francisco Giants came back to defeat the Cincinnati Reds 12-11 in 11 innings, on Friday, in dramatic fashion. They came up short today, losing 2-9.

After a solid home series against their so-Cal rivals, from whom the Giants took two out of three games, the club took their talents on the road. After an injury to left-handed starter Derek Holland, former first-round draft pick Tyler Beede was called up from AAA Sacramento to handle the starting duties in the series opener.

For the River Cats, Beede excelled, posting a stingy 1.99 ERA through five starts, with 34 strikeouts, a 1.06 WHIP, and 22.2 innings pitched. After getting knocked around in limited major league work, last season, as well as some 2018 AAA struggles, the Giants' young righty looked as though he had finally turned a corner.

That is, of course, until he ran into a buzzsaw in Cincy, Friday night. The Reds jumped on top of Beede and the G-Men, early, with a first-inning, two-out, three-run homer off the bat of Derek Dietrich. The lead would baloon to eight, with a five-spot in the third, including another three-run bomb delivered by the Reds' Dietrich.

The young Beede would leave his rough 2019 MLB debut, having given up eight runs (seven earned) in 2.1 innings, on seven hits (two homeruns) and two walks. The Giants prospect managed to strike out three Reds on the night.

With the score sitting at 8-0, through just three innings, Friday's game looked like a rout in-progress. That was until San Francisco's offense began to show signs of life in the top of the fourth, where the G-Men plated three runs on a Brandon Crawford RBI-groundout and a Steven Duggar clutch two-out, two-run single.

A four-spot in the sixth cut the deficit to three runs, with the score standing at 10-7 Cincinnati. A Stephen Vogt RBI-double and Joe Panik's round-tripper contributed to the Giants' big sixth. The Reds added to the lead, in the seventh, on a Jesse Winker RBI-ground rule double, pushing the lead to 11-7.

San Francisco would inch closer with a pair run-scoring singles by Brandon Belt and Evan Longoria, in the top of the eighth. The bullpen work, late in the game, came through, as Sam Dyson and Tony Watson held the line and kept the game wothin reach.

The top of the ninth was set for a hero, and that man would be the newly-added veteran, Vogt. With the Cincinnati closer, Raisel Iglesias, getting the call to close the game, the Giants faced a formidable foe. On the first pitch from Iglesias, Vogt left Great American Ball Park stunned, sending a shot over the right-center field wall.

Not satisfied with only completing a portion of a comeback, San Francisco's bullpen continued their shutdown job, with Reyes Moronta and Will Smith working scoreless 10th and 11th innings.

Everything came down to whether the Giants could strike before the Reds in extras, and Evan Longoria would offer up the answer to that question. The veteran third baseman stepped to the plate and blasted the 0-1 offering–a slider from Cincy's Jared Hughes–into the left field stands, giving San Francisco their first lead with what would be the game-winning run.

The eight-run comeback matched the largest in Giants franchise history and marked the fifth time the team had done so. With the win, San Francisco has strung together a nice little stretch, winning three of their last four.