Giants complete stunning sweep at Coors Field
DENVER — When the San Francisco Giants return home to Oracle Park today, ace Madison Bumgarner will take the mound for what could be one of his last two starts before he’s dealt to a contending club.
It could also be another normal outing for a pitcher who suddenly finds himself playing for the hottest team in baseball.
For months, the Giants appeared destined to control the July 31 trade deadline by sending out their most valuable assets in return for the top prospects belonging to contending clubs.
With the team enjoying its best stretch of baseball in more than three years, the Giants’ front office will be having second thoughts as the club controls its own destiny over the next two weeks.
After completing a four-game sweep of the Rockies with an 11-8 win on Wednesday at Coors Field, the Giants (47-49) have won a season-high five in a row and 12 of their last 14 games to take over sole possession of third place in the National League West.
On the shoulders of a balanced offense attack, the Giants wrapped up their first four-game sweep at Coors Field since September 15-18, 2011 and their first sweep of any kind in Denver since 2012.
How stunning was the team’s 61 road trip that included four games in three days in Colorado?
In the 22 games the Giants played at Coors Field prior to this week’s series, the club appeared allergic to the hitter-friendly confines as they posted a 3-19 record.
A three-run eighth inning rally helped the Giants scored in the double digits for the sixth time in their last 14 games. In the club’s previous 151 games, San Francisco had scored 10 or more runs just five times.
Every starting position player finished with at least one hit, six recorded multi-hit games and six drove in a run on Wednesday as the Giants put the finishing touches on a series in which they outscored the Rockies 40-15.
The Giants entered the day leading the major leagues with 26 home runs in the month of July and received a pair of go-ahead home runs in the middle innings on Wednesday.
Trailing 4-3, catcher Stephen Vogt homered for the second time in the series and the third time this season as he yanked a tworun shot into the right field bleachers to push the Giants ahead 5-4 in the fifth.
After Colorado added a run in
the bottom of the inning, shortstop Donovan Solano hit his second home run of the year out to the deepest part of Coors Field to give the Giants a 6-5 advantage in the top of the sixth. Solano’s 433-foot solo shot against Rockies starter Jon Gray marked his first homer against a right-handed pitcher since September 21, 2016 and after doubling in the eighth inning, the shortstop set a new career-high with nine total bases.
As they did throughout this week’s series, the Giants found ways to add on as pinch-hitter Alex Dickerson and first baseman Brandon Belt delivered RBI singles in the top of the seventh.
An offense that entered the day averaging eight runs in the month of July reached that total by the end of the seventh inning, offsetting a rough outing from starter Shaun Anderson.
Anderson’s 12th career start was his worst to date as the rookie failed to complete five innings on a humid, 94-degree afternoon at Coors Field. The right-hander surrendered five earned runs in 4 1/3 innings on a day when the Giants needed their starter to pitch deep into the game.
The Giants gave Anderson two different leads to work with, but he couldn’t hold either against the Rockies as he allowed a go-ahead two-run home run to second baseman Ryan McMahon in the bottom of the fourth inning before permitting a game-tying single to third baseman Nolan Arenado in the bottom of the fifth.
Correction
On Page 7 of Wednesday’s issue of the Lodi News-Sentinel (“Lodi squad ready for Pacific Southwest tournament”), in one of the photos, Lodi 14U all-star baseball player JT Bettencourt is warming up. Bettencourt goes by JT, but is listed as Nathaniel on the roster.