Sharp in all areas, S.F. beats Colorado
They played as if they emerged from an Iowa cornfield and were part of someone’s dream about the ghosts of Giants past.
There was situational hitting. Sparkling defense. A starting pitcher who carried a shutout bid into the seventh inning. A leadoff hitter who reached base three times. A right fielder who legged out three infield hits. A catcher who drove in three runs.
The Giants gave their fans a glimpse of better times when they rolled to a 9-2 victory over the Rockies in Monday night’s series opener at AT&T Park, a rare feat for a team with two wins in 14 games and on track for 100-plus losses.
“It’s been a while since we’ve all come together in the same game and contributed at the same time,” said Brandon Crawford, who made two stellar plays at shortstop.
That the opponent was from Colorado made the accomplishment more alarming. The Rockies had beaten the Giants nine straight times, including a recent four-game sweep at Coors Field capped with Nolan Arenado’s walk-off homer, which completed his first career cycle.
Arenado was just a normal guy Monday, not the Giant destroyer we all know. In 81 career games against the Giants, equivalent to a half-season, he has 21 homers and 75 RBIs. On this night, he was 0-for-4 and made the final out in an inning three times.
Jeff Samardzija was in control for six innings, scattering three hits and retiring 10 straight batters. He was pulled in the seventh after yielding three singles.
Reliever Hunter Strickland gave up a run-scoring single to Tony Wolters before escaping the inning. Sam Dyson struck out the side in the eighth, and rookie Kyle Crick was summoned for the ninth to finish business.
“We’ve got a lot of pride in this clubhouse, and a lot of guys want to win ballgames regardless of the situation,” Samardzija said. “Every day is important. We’ve got to come out and have some fun and enjoy playing this game and go back to finding why we play this game.”
The Giants were 7-for-15 with runners in scoring position with two sacrifice flies. Buster Posey knocked in the first two runs with a first-inning double and third-inning flyout. The next two runs were scored on triples by Brandon Belt and Denard Span, and Span scored on Joe Panik’s sacrifice fly, making it 5-0.
After the Rockies narrowed the gap to 5-2 in the seventh, the Giants responded in the bottom of the inning on Crawford’s opposite-field single, which scored Hunter Pence, who had three infield singles.
The Giants poured it on with a three-run eighth courtesy of Kelby Tomlinson’s run-scoring double and RBI singles by Panik and Posey.
“Hopefully this will do a lot for their confidence, take a little pressure off, have them quit fighting it so much,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “There’s a lot of talent in this offense, and there’s no reason we can’t be consistent putting runs on the board.”
Samardzija won just his third game against nine losses, three of which were to the Rockies, and it helped that he finally got offensive help. His run-support average was 3.19, third lowest in the majors.
Samardzija also received defensive help, including from Crawford, who fielded Arenado’s grounder in the hole to get an inning-ending force at third — he credited rookie Ryder Jones for being alert enough to cover the bag — and also ranged behind second to rob Ian Desmond.