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SAN FRANCISCO – Home had been a broken heart for the Giants before returning to Oracle Park on Friday night.
The Giants dropped all six games on their previous homestand, as well as their last eight dating back to July 12, which was tied for their second-longest home losing streak in the San Francisco era. They made sure not to tie the record of nine with a 5-0 win against the Washington Nationals to start a nine-game homestand over the next 10 days.
Every facet of the game – offense, defense, baserunning and pitching – was a positive for the Giants. Between Matt Gage and Kai-Wei Teng, nine straight Nationals came to the plate without reaching base to begin the game. The bullpen then continued to do their job, too.
Rafael Devers and Casey Schmitt each homered, the Giants outhit the Nationals 10-4 and all but two of their batters recorded at least one hit.
Here are three takeaways from the Giants’ first home win in exactly four weeks.
Open And Shut
In between starts for rookie Carson Whisenhunt and 42-year-old Justin Verlander, the Giants went the non-traditional route of using an opener to start their three-game series with the Nationals. The decision couldn’t have gone any better for Gage and manager Bob Melvin.
Gage took down the Nationals in order, needing only 17 pitches to do so. He induced two straight fly outs to begin the game and ended his one inning, striking out Brady House with a nasty slider. His night was done, passing the torch to Teng.
And Teng took the Giants as close to the finish line as they could have hoped.
Teng made his first MLB start last Saturday and was tagged for five runs over 3 1/3 innings against the New York Mets. His fortunes were much better on Friday, throwing five scoreless innings out of the bullpen. Teng ran into trouble in the fifth inning when the Nationals loaded the bases without any outs.
Just three pitches later, Teng clawed his way out of the jam. He forced a force out on a grounder to first base and then got Jacob Young to ground into an inning-ending double play. The right-hander allowed three hits, one walk and struck out four over five strong innings.
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When Drew Gilbert swung through a changeup to strike out in his first MLB at-bat Friday night, he licked his lips and looked back at the mound as if he now knew he belonged. Butterflies could drift away. Everything quite literally could only go up from there.
Any frustrations he had from that at-bat didn’t follow him to the outfield. The Giants lost a defensive weapon in the way Mike Yastrzemski manned right field, but Gilbert already gave him a run for his money in his first game sporting the orange and black. Gilbert raced to the right-field corner with two outs in the top of the third inning and perfectly executed a face-first dive to the delight of Giants fans.
At the plate, Gilbert wasn’t as fortunate. The 24-year-old who turns 25 next month followed his strikeout with two groundouts and a pop out. Gilbert, in five games for the Sacramento River Cats, was 7-for-14 with two triples and a double since being acquired from the Mets.
Bye, Bye Baby
The Giants and Nationals combined for a lowly 12 runs over three games earlier this season. San Francisco scored seven of those runs, tallying for more than half that total Friday night in the second series of the season between these two teams.
Leadoff batter Heliot Ramos scorched a line drive to center, marking how well the Giants saw the ball all game. Dever immediately one-upped Ramos, hammering a 427-foot homer to give the Giants an early lead they held onto all night. Matt Chapman, two batters late,r added another run with a single to center that scored Willy Adames.
This was a night about the Giants rounding the bases. Chapman doubled later in the game, and Patrick Bailey unhitched the trailer for his third triple of the season after having two in his first two years in the big leagues. Singles, doubles and even triples will never live up to the long ball, though.
The party continued when Schmitt joined Devers in jogging the bases with a deep shot of his own in the sixth inning. The two-run blast improved the Giants’ record to 23-6 when they hit multiple home runs in a game this season.
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