Giants at their best in blowout victory
For all of the success the Giants have enjoyed during the first month of the season, Gabe Kapler’s club opened Monday’s threegame series without a single blowout victory. Hello, Colorado Rockies.
Against a last-place team whose general manager quit on the team earlier in the day, the Giants scored nine runs in the first two innings and picked up a 12-0 shutout win to improve to 15-7 on the year.
“I usually spend an hour or so after games picking things apart, but what’s there to pick apart?” Kapler said. “The guys did a great job.”
Each of the Giants’ first 22 games this season were decided by four runs or fewer, but that finally changed on a night when three different players — Evan Longoria, Buster Posey
and Mauricio Dubón — each drove in at least three runs.
Right-hander Anthony DeSclafani was just as good as the Giants’ offense on Monday as he tossed the team’s first complete game shutout since Chris Stratton blanked the Rockies in a 2-0 win at Oracle Park on Sept. 14, 2018.
DeSclafani allowed just three hits and needed only 100 pitches to record the second shutout of his career and the first since Aug. 27, 2016, when he was a member of the Cincinnati Reds.
Longoria hadn’t started since Thursday due to a nagging left hamstring issue, but broke a scoreless tie with a RBI single in the first inning before doubling home two more runs in the second. The double left Longoria’s bat at 113.2 mph, marking his hardest-hit ball in three-plus seasons with San Francisco and the hardest-hit ball by a Giants player in 2021.
After trotting into second to push the Giants ahead 6-0 in the second inning, Longoria was replaced by pinchrunner Jason Vosler.
Posey, who finished a triple shy of the cycle, hit his first home run at Oracle Park since September 24, 2019 in the bottom of the sixth against reliever Tyler Kinley. The two-run blast gave the Giants a 12-0 advantage and gave Posey his first five-homer month since May 2017, when Posey was in the midst of building his résumé for a fifth career AllStar nod.
With a home run, a double and two singles, Posey racked up four hits for the first time since Aug. 10, 2018, and just the third time since the 2016 season.
The Giants have received consistent production from both Longoria and Posey this season, so the swings Dubón contributed to the team’s highest-scoring game of the season were among the most encouraging signs Kapler saw on Monday.