Jeff Bagwell's Greatest Games, Part Two: July 2, 1991 at Giants

Second of a semi-regular series, doing what I can to honor the great career of Jeff Bagwell.

Suggestions and full-out submissions are certainly welcomed, comments and reminiscences too.

Any struggles that Jeff Bagwell may have had during April of 1991 were literally blasted away after that game in Pittsburgh where he reached the upper deck, and as Bagwell entered this Tuesday Night In San Francisco, he had pretty clearly become, along with Craig Biggio, one of the team's best two players.

While the game that Bagwell had that night wasn't spectacular in any kind of historical sense, it was the first time he had the kind of game that superstars regularly do:

• It was his first 4-RBI game
• It was only his second three-hit game, and
• it was the first time he'd ever reached four times in a game.

The '91 Astros were expected to lose 100 games, and were already 16-1/2 games out of first when they flew into San Francisco to begin the second leg of their six-game road trip. The team had lost two of three in Cincinnati and nine of 13. Bagwell himself was pretty hot, though. He had just completed a June during which he hit .317. He'd hit .270 in May and .254 in April, so he definitely had the trends going in the right direction. He also came in having homered in two straight games, and having reached in his last fifteen.

Bagwell alsways did just a little bit better vs. lefties throughout his career, and it may not be a coincidence that this milestone game for Jeff came with an up-and-down lefty like Bud Black toeing the slab for the opposition.

Bagwell proceded to walk in the first, drive in Biggio with a single in the second, homered, driving in Finley in the seventh, and singled, pushing home Oberkfell in the eighth.

By the time he was done, Bagwell had homered in three consecutive games for the first time in his career. His final line looked like this:

Much of this info and more can be found at Retrosheet, including the final linescore, which was

Mark Portugal (7-4) won it, while Black (6-7) took the loss.