Giants win streak at 8 after Yaz's HR
Beating division rivals, coming up with big late wins — the San Francisco Giants are starting to look like a team with serious designs on the NL West.
The Giants were a little slow out of the gate Monday against the Padres, who are in fourth place but who have been playing well lately and remain among the most talented teams in the league. San Diego has beaten up on San Francisco but good since last August and went into the ninth inning at Oracle Park with a two-run lead before the Giants tied it up, then won 7-4 in the 10th on Mike Yastrzemski’s three-run homer, a splash hit and his second blast of the night.
Yastrzemski has four career walkoff hits, all homers, but this was the first no-doubter. “That was probably the first time I’d actually enjoyed it a little bit you know,” he said, “because I’m always worried about the ball getting caught.”
And yet it was a play the inning before that he relished even more. He was sporting a large scab on his left arm courtesy of his plunging slide into home that tied the game. Yastrzemski had to go all out from third because he got back to the bag a little later than he’d like and Patrick Bailey’s sacrifice fly was a line drive to left.
“That was probably more exhilarating,” he said. “I was pretty fired up the game was tied up.”
Giants 7, Padres 4 San Diego San Francisco ab r h bi ab r h bi Totals 39 4 10 4 Totals 32 7 6 6 Tatis Jr. rf 5 0 1 0 Wade Jr. 1b 3 0 1 0 Soto lf 4 2 2 2 Schmitt ph-ss 1 0 0 0 Machado 3b 5 0 1 0 Pederson dh 4 1 0 0 Bogaerts ss 4 0 0 0 Estrada 2b-ss 4 1 0 0 Cronenworth 1b 5 1 1 0 Conforto lf 3 0 0 0 Sánchez c 4 0 0 0 Slater ph 0 0 0 0 Odor dh 4 1 2 0 Sabol ph-lf 0 1 0 0 Kim 2b 4 0 3 2 Yastrzemski rf 5 3 3 4 Grisham cf 4 0 0 0 Matos cf 4 0 0 0 Crawford ss 1 0 0 0 Davis ph-3b 1 0 0 0 Bailey c 3 0 1 1 Villar 3b-2b 3 1 1 1 San Diego 100 210 000 0 — 4 San Francisco 000 011 002 3 — 7 E_Crawford (7). DP_San Diego 0, San Francisco 1. LOB_San Diego 8, San Francisco 10. 2B_Tatis Jr. (16), Odor (9). HR_Soto 2 (13), Villar (5), Yastrzemski 2 (10). SB_Kim (12). SF_Bailey (1). S_Sabol (1). IP H R ER BB SO San Diego Wacha 6 4 2 2 2 0 Hill H,8 2 0 0 0 0 3 García H,8 1-3 1 2 2 2 0 Carlton BS,0-1 1-3 0 0 0 2 0 Kerr L,0-1 2-3 1 3 2 1 1 San Francisco Walker 1 2-3 3 1 1 1 0 Ta.Rogers 2-3 0 0 0 0 1 Junis 1 2-3 4 2 2 0 2 Winn 5 3 1 1 0 4 Doval W,2-2 1 0 0 0 1 1 WP_García. Umpires_Home, Adrian Johnson; First, Manny Gonzalez; Second, Quinn Wolcott; Third, Junior Valentine. T_3:04. A_35,376 (41,915). See More Collapse
A .500 team little more than a week ago, the Giants have won eight in a row. Five of the team’s wins this month have come after trailing in the seventh inning.
“We’re just having fun, I think we’re not taking anything too seriously,” Yastrzemski said. “We’re always trying to stay competitive, just take it one pitch at a time. We’re trying to have good at-bats and I think everyone’s really bought into that and it’s been working out well.”
Many of those good at-bats are coming from the team’s rookies. In the ninth, Blake Sabol drew a pinch-hit leadoff walk before Yastrzemski whapped an opposite-field single. Sabol then scored on Luis Garcia’s wild pitch, and Luis Matos sent Yastrzemski to third with a flyball. J.D. Davis walked, and Bailey sent Yastrzemski blazing in from third. That’s three first-year players in the middle of everything, between Sabol, Matos and Bailey.
Another rookie, Casey Schmitt, drew a two-out walk — just his second walk of the season (Yastrzemski: “Casey walked, that was incredible”) — but Padres' rookie lefty Ray Kerr came in and struck out Joc Pederson.
In the 10th, Sabol’s bunt moved up placed runner Pederson and Thairo Estrada, who’d been intentionally walked.
“Sabol’s bunt was fantastic,” manager Gabe Kapler said.
“For Sabol to be able to calm himself down and really execute that bunt was unbelievable,” Yastrzemski said, “That deserves as much credit as anything in that inning. That’s a hard thing to do, bunting left-on-left against a guy throwing heat.”
Then Yastrzemski did his thing, driving a 3-1 fastball into the drink off Kerr for his sixth career splash hit.
“Obviously, everybody’s going to talk about Yaz, and for good reason,” Kapler said. “That was as clutch an at-bat as it gets and he had several of them in the game. He’s feeling really good at the plate right now, it doesn’t matter if there’s a lefty or a righty out there. You want him at the plate in the big moment.”
Camilo Doval comes in for a bushel of credit, too. With the placed runner at second in the 10th, he walked Juan Soto (who’d homered twice) intentionally, then struck out Manny Machado on a slider, the 11th pitch of an at-bat that included seven pitches that cracked 100 mph. Xander Bogaerts grounded out and Jake Cronenworth flied out.
San Diego has yet to get in gear despite having the most superstar talent in the league, but had won seven of 10 coming in and had taken nine of the past 11 games against San Francisco since Aug. 9.
With John Brebbia’s lat strain, rookie Ryan Walker was the Giants opener Monday; he’d made only three starts in 163 minor-league games, so he was in something of an unfamiliar spot. The Padres’ first hitter, Fernando Tatis Jr., doubled, but the other half of the all-rookie battery, Bailey, threw Tatis out trying to steal third with no outs and Soto at bat. (Tatis initially was called safe, but that was overturned on replay.) Soto then homered to left, the first Walker has allowed in his 12 big-league games.
Taylor Rogers came on in the second with two outs and a man at second and froze Trent Grisham with a sinker on the outside corner. Jakob Junis, who entered with one out in the third, also had a big moment. After Machado singled to pit men at the corners, Junis got Bogaerts to bounce into a double play. The next inning, though, Junis allowed two runs, on a base hit by Ha-Seong Jim, and Keaton Winn, who started the fifth, gave up a leadoff homer to Soto.
Winn settled in beautifully from there, allowing no hits to the next 13 hitters; the only baserunner in that stretch reached on an error until Rougned Odor interrupted the string with a leadoff single in the ninth.
What got Winn on track? “Honestly, it was the home run,” he said. “My nerves just disappeared when that happened.”
Winn wasn’t overly happy with his stuff in his debut last week, though he’d worked four innings and earned the save. He was focused on staying in the zone more, and struck out four in his five innings, including Bogaerts twice, and Tatis with a whirling swing at Winn’s super splitter to end the ninth.
“He threw a ton of strides and took us through the majority of the game and kept us in a position where we could strike at the end,” Kapler said. “The split looked great, the fastball had good life and velocity on it and he got some challenge swings from some very good hitters. It kind of gives you the belief that he could be a durable starting pitcher in this league for a long time. Obviously, there’s a ways to go to get there, but he’s got all the talent in the world to be able to do that.”
David Villar came up last week and showed some signs of coming out of the major funk he was in during his first stint with the team, going 2-for-5 and striking out just once. Monday, he clocked a first-pitch fastball from Michael Wacha out to left center, his first homer since April 29 and fifth overall. Wacha allowed four hits and two walks in his six innings; in eight career starts against San Francisco, he has a 1.64 ERA.
The Giants are 3½ games behind the Diamondbacks, who will be the next team in after this four-game series against the Padres. Their wnning streak is the longest they’ve had since nine in a row Sept. 5-14 during their 107-win 2021 season, but this time around, it’s youth prevailing.
“I’ve heard stories about the nightclub in here. so that was really cool to get to experience one, especially after that walk=off splash,” Winn said, wide-eyed. “That was so cool.”
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
