Giants roll: Joe Panik hits two of San Francisco’s four home runs in win over Atlanta.
Behind 4 home runs and 4 triples in game, S.F. garners its 1st series victory of 2nd half
The tortoise race continues. Moments after Joe Panik homered in Sunday’s 13-4 victory against the Braves, Matt Duffy homered for the Rays in Houston. Later in the afternoon, Panik homered again.
“I’m going to have to text him,” Panik said. “There was a couple months’ hiatus, but it’s back on, baby.”
The Giants’ power has been on hiatus all year. In a game they needed to capture their first series win at home since the All-Star break, the Giants played like the Bronx Bombers let loose at Coors Field.
They hit four homers and four triples in a game for the first time in the modern era. Only three other teams had accomplished it. The 1998 Yankees were the last.
Panik had the first twohomer game of his career and established a career high with his ninth and 10th. Denard Span and Eduardo Nuñez also
went deep. Nuñez hit the first right-handed homer by a Giant since Madison Bumgarner, against Jacob deGrom, on Aug. 18.
Brandon Crawford, Conor Gillaspie and Jarrett Parker became the first Giants trio in the San Francisco era to triple in the same inning, an eightrun seventh that turned a 5-3 game into a runaway. Brandon Belt tripled in the second.
Crawford’s triple made him the all-time Giants leader at AT&T Park with 21, breaking a tie with Ray Durham.
The Giants’ cathartic day at the plate was fueled by a woeful Braves pitching staff and atmospheric conditions that made the park play small. They had an AT&T Park-record 41 total bases, their most since a 2002 game at Coors.
“I was telling a bunch of guys, I’ve never seen so many home runs here,” Gillaspie said. “Usually it takes a pretty good poke even during the day to get one out of there.
“It was one of those days I think everybody in the clubhouse needed. It doesn’t matter who had all the hits.”
The only downer for the Giants came on the out-of-town scoreboard, which revealed a 1-0 Dodgers victory against the Cubs.
The Giants over the weekend played the worst team in baseball, the Dodgers played the best team, and the Giants gained no ground. They remain two games back.
Bumgarner earned his 13th win. He allowed three runs in seven innings, including a two-run Freddie Freeman homer that closed a 5-1 game to 5-3 and had to make many of the faithful nervous.
Bumgarner was not sharp and clearly was going to hand the ball to a bullpen that now lacks Derek Law (elbow strain).
Bumgarner praised Freeman for hitting what the left-hander called a perfectly placed pitch.
“That was a pretty good half swing he took to hit it out in center field,” Bumgarner said. “That was incredible.”
Panik hit both of his homers against rookie Aaron Blair. In fact, he has hit three of his 10 this year against Blair, who surrendered homers to Panik, Bumgarner and Buster Posey during a 6-0 Giants win in Atlanta on June 2.
The Giants’ lack of power has hurt them. They entered the game with 105 homers, 29th in the majors. Only the Braves (90) were worse.
Posey has not homered since the second game out of the break. Hunter Pence, who should return from a tight hamstring Tuesday, has one since he came off the disabled list July 30. Brandon Belt leads the team with 14, none since July 13, although he has lost a bunch to AT&T Park’s dimensions.
The Giants have won championships without big power, but the ability to go deep to tie a game, or settle one, can be helpful and even necessary for a club that struggles in the clutch.
Manager Bruce Bochy admitted he did not see a fourhomer game coming, the Giants’ first at AT&T in six years.
“To be honest, no,” he said. “But they have it in them.”