SAN FRANCISCO_Major League debuts are filled with opportunities to create memories, celebrate a lifelong journey and for the first time in a professional baseball player's career, experience something different.
San Francisco Giants rookie Tyler Beede had already been removed from the game when that something different happened, but he soaked up the excitement when Andrew McCutchen delivered a walkoff single to score Kelby Tomlinson in the bottom of the ninth in a 5-4 win.
Like the Giants pitchers who started the team's previous two games, Beede didn't receive a run of support while he was on the mound. And like nearly every Giants pitcher from the last decade, he witnessed first-hand the type of damage Diamondbacks' first baseman Paul Goldschmidt can create.
After San Francisco manufactured a run to take a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the eighth, the Giants turned the ball over to Hunter Strickland to shut the door.
With two outs and only one player left knocking, Goldschmidt, perhaps the Giants' greatest nemesis, crushed a soaring blast halfway up the left field bleachers to tie the game 4-4.
The rest of the Giants knew McCutchen was capable of playing the hero's role, but Beede wasn't in town to experience his dramatic 14th-inning walkoff home run to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday.
Consider Beede a McCutchen fan.
In the end, the seagulls swirled and the Giants emerged victorious, but it did not come without a struggle.
In his Tuesday outing, Beede was hoping to become the first Giants pitcher since Ryan Sadowski to start and earn a win in his first Major League debut. Although his offense didn't offer him much help during Beede's four innings of work, the Giants got him off the hook in the sixth and helped him escape with a no-decision.
Beede needed 87 pitches to work through four innings against the National League West leaders, as he struggled with command throughout the night. Although he allowed five walks and hit a batter, Beede only allowed a pair of runs, both of which scored on an A.J. Pollock double in the top of the first.
After the Diamondbacks fought back to tie the game 3-3, a bizarre sequence helped the Giants capture the go-ahead run in the bottom of the eighth. With two on and one-out, Evan Longoria stepped to the plate as overdue as movie rentals at Blockbuster.
With McCutchen and Buster Posey on the move, Longoria swung and whiffed at a 3-2 pitch that could have allowed the Diamondbacks to catch Posey stealing and end the scoring threat.
But when catcher Alex Avila's throw skipped beyond the second base bag and onto the outfield grass, McCutchen raced home to score in rather improbable fashion. That run was critical, but the run he drove in to end the game helped a team in need of positive energy.
With Johnny Cueto headed to the disabled list, left-handed prospect Andrew Suarez will now have an opportunity to accomplish the feat last achieved by Sadowski in Wednesday's series-finale.
After Beede arrived as part of the Giants' taxi squad Monday, Suarez drove down from Sacramento Tuesday and will soon be added to both the 40 and 25-man rosters. The Giants' 2015 second round draft choice out of Miami will face a Diamondbacks team off to a hot start, but an offense that is without two of its top threats, Jake Lamb and Steven Souza.
