For 10 innings, the San Francisco Giants couldn’t get a runner past first base against Brandon Pfaadt and the Arizona Diamondbacks. They barely got anyone to first, with a walk, a single and an error providing the only three baserunners of the first 10 innings — with two of them immediately erased by Heliot Ramos grounding into double plays. Things were feeling distinctly sweepy at Chase Field.

But Justin Verlander continued his lights-out pitching of the last three weeks with seven shutout innings of his own. And after nine innings of one-hit ball from Pfaadt, D-Backs manager Torey Lovullo decided not to treat him like Warren Spahn dueling Juan Marichal, and finally went to his bullpen, when the young Giants finally teed off for five 11th-inning runs in a 5-1 victory.

Facing reliever John Curtiss (3-2), Bryce Eldridge drew his first major league walk, then was pulled for his first major league pinch-runner. Jerar Encarnacion, the unluckiest man in baseball, came through with the go-ahead hit, his fifth RBI in his four games since returning from the injured list.

After a Patrick Bailey single loaded the bases, Christian Koss knocked home two more runs with a double, Grant McCray hit a sacrifice fly, and Rafael Devers drove Koss home with a single, all while Verlander wondered why his teammates can’t ever do this without the help of a ghost runner on second.

For his second straight start, Verlander shut down his opponent for seven innings in a low-scoring game, only to have the Giants blow the game open in extra innings and win, 5-1. He’s still stuck on three wins for the season and 265 for his career, but after allowing only one run, total, in his last four starts, Verlander lowered his ERA to a very respectable 3.75. That’s good enough that the 42-year-old has decided this won’t be the last month of his baseball career.

Verlander faced the minimum through three innings, allowing one hit to Blaze Alexander, who was thrown out stealing by Bailey. He got in a little trouble in the 4th when the D-Backs got runners to second and third with two outs, but Alexander accommodated him again by striking out on a 3-2 pitch. His final line: 7 IP, 3H (one on the infield), 2BB, 3K, 0R.

Pfaadt was even stingier, yielding only a single to Dan Gilbert and a walk to Willy Adames while striking out seven. Through nine innings, the Giants had sent only 28 men to the plate, one over the minimum, and Pfaadt still hadn’t thrown 100 pitches.

Perhaps the Diamondbacks’ strong 9th and having watched the Giants bullpen for the previous two games helped Lovullo’s decision to relieve Pfaadt. After a spotless 8th inning from Spencer Bivens, Adventure Closer Ryan Walker gave up a one-out triple to Corbin Carroll and loaded the bases with an intentional walk and an unintentional hit-by-pitch. It was Carroll’s 17th triple of the season, which easily leads the majors.

But Walker struck out pinch-hitter Adrian Del Castillo and got Alek Thomas to ground out to send the game to extras, where both teams spent the 10th inning stranding runners on third with one out. Joel Peguero was excellent, working two hitless innings of relief for his third win of the season, only giving up a sacrifice fly to Carroll in the 11th that made it 5-1.

The Giants spent 10 innings quietly bowing out of the wild-card race, but crawled back into it with a thrilling 11th inning. They’re now two games behind the New York Mets, one half-game back of Arizona, and tied with the Cincinnati Reds with 10 games left to play. Next is a four-game showdown in Chavez Ravine with the Los Angeles Dodgers, featuring Logan Webb vs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Thursday, Robbie Ray vs. Clayton Kershaw on Friday, and closing out with…Kai-Wei Teng and a bullpen game.

In the immortal words of Chris Martin, nobody said it was easy. The Giants’ won’t be unconsciously uncoupling from the MLB playoffs just yet.