Sandoval pitches perfect inning in Giants' blowout loss

Move over, Shohei Ohtani. The Panda may be MLB's newest two-way talent.

With the San Francisco Giants trailing the Los Angeles Dodgers by 11 runs in the first game of Saturday's doubleheader, manager Bruce Bochy turned to the unlikeliest of arms in third baseman Pablo Sandoval to pitch the ninth inning of their eventual 15-6 loss.

This was the 11-year veteran's first appearance as a pitcher, but he certainly fooled everybody in attendance at AT&T Park. Sandoval needed just 11 pitches to retire the Dodgers in order in the ninth, making him the only Giants pitcher to toss a 1-2-3 inning Saturday afternoon. He worked very quickly, and hit 88 mph on the radar gun with his fastball, according to Ken Gurnick of MLB.com, while also showing off a pretty nice sweeping curveball.

"He's always having fun on the mound throwing to the catcher, and I knew he had a pretty good delivery," manager Bruce Bochy said of his new two-way threat postgame, per John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle. "I didn't know he was this clean. And he had a breaking ball like that. ... He was legit."

Asked where he learned to throw a curveball, the third baseman told Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area: "You don't learn that. You're born with it."

In the bottom of the ninth, Sandoval - who started the game at third base - got an at-bat while still listed as the pitcher, drawing a walk. As a hitter, the 31-year-old finished his day 1-for-4 with an RBI.

Sandoval became the first Giants position player to appear as a pitcher since Greg Litton on July 4, 1991, and the first to not allow a run since outfielder Matty Alou threw two clean innings on Aug. 26, 1965.