SAN FRANCISCO — For about half an hour on Sunday afternoon, Oracle Park resembled Coors Field.
Five home runs were hit in the middle of the game, but overall, it was a sloppy day. That benefited the Giants, who scored five unearned runs, including three after Red Sox second baseman Romy Gonzalez dropped a line drive in the bottom of the seventh inning. With a 9-5 win, the Giants took the three-game series from a Red Sox team that had been playing good baseball heading into the series, but arrived without Rafael Devers in the heart of the lineup.
You can go an entire season without seeing a second baseman drop a line drive hit right at him, but the Red Sox did it twice in three games. The Gonzalez mistake was particularly costly. He whiffed on a 98 mph liner by Mike Yastrzemski, allowing the go-ahead run to score. Heliot Ramos followed with a two-run double. That inning also included a safety squeeze from Tyler Fitzgerald that tied the game.
There was a little bit of everything offensively from the Giants, who scored six runs in their first three games with Devers but 17 against the Red Sox. Before the series started, Devers met with Boston media and said the lineup was about to get hot. For a weekend, at least, he was proven right.
Casey Crushing
The Giants have gotten very little production out of second base this season, but they should soon have a new option. Matt Chapman will be back in two to three weeks, and Casey Schmitt is playing like someone who has no intention of coming out of the lineup. Bob Melvin easily could slide him across the diamond if Fitzgerald continues to struggle at the plate.
Schmitt came up a triple shy of the cycle, but he tied a career-high with four hits, including his fourth homer since taking over for Chapman at the start of last week. The low screamer left his bat at 111.6 mph, which is tied for the hardest he has hit a ball in the big leagues.
Schmitt has multiple hits in five of 12 games since becoming a starter and has raised his average to .286. He had a .521 OPS two weeks ago. Now, it’s .831.
Making His Push
When the first round of All-Star voting was released earlier this week, Heliot Ramos was 18th among NL outfielders, three spots behind former teammate Michael Conforto, who has had a rough season in Los Angeles. Ramos won’t come close to being voted in, but he is making a strong case to be an NL All-Star for a second straight year.
Ramos drove in four runs and now ranks eighth among NL outfielders with 43 RBI. He hit his 13th homer of the season Saturday, and his OPS is up to .835, which ranks seventh among NL outfielders. It’s a much more crowded field than a year ago, with James Wood, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Andy Pages joining Ramos as young outfielders who are turning into building blocks in their cities, but Ramos has a shot if he can stay hot the next couple of weeks.
Ray Day
Robbie Ray has pitched like an All-Star this season, but he probably isn’t thrilled with how he fared on this homestand. Ray gave up seven runs in 11 innings against the Cleveland Guardians and Red Sox.
Boston put four runs on his line, although the first was unearned because of the Ramos error. The Red Sox scored three in the fifth on a pair of loud homers. Ray had given up just seven homers in his previous 15 starts, with his opener in Cincinnati being the only other multi-homer game.
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