Where was this the 1st 2½ months?
DETROIT — Human nature forces us to look at the Giants now and wonder what could have been had they played anything approaching this brand of baseball over their first 78 games, when 100 losses seemed as sure as Hunter Pence and a great cup of coffee in the morning. Their 5-4 victory against Detroit on Wednesday night was their seventh in the past eight games and secured their first winning trip in a
full year, a drought that sounds almost incomprehensible.
Starting with sweeps at home against Colorado and in Pittsburgh, and continuing in the Motor City, the Giants have played solid ball, the type that wins ballgames in a pennant race, which they will not be in after that little matter of losing 51 of their first 78 games.
“It’s hard to make sense of those struggles,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “It’s nice to win ballgames and see us play the way we’re capable of playing. We’re just getting better all around. We’ve really picked it up in all aspects of the game.”
Start with productive twoout hitting, which seemed as foreign to the Giants as Fellini before the Rockies series. Now, it’s almost expected.
The Giants rushed to a 5-0 lead against left-hander Brian Norris. Four scored on two-out hits: singles by Jae-Gyun Hwang and Brandon Belt and a two-run triple by Pence, whose three RBIs gave him nine on the trip.
“We’ve worked hard. That’s something I’m proud of everybody for,” Belt said. “We’ve kept working and kept working. People don’t see that. It’s nice to come out and get hits with runners on second and third, and hit some balls in the gap.”
The offense is getting contributions everywhere. Gorkys Hernandez had three hits at leadoff. Kelby Tomlinson batted ninth and scored two runs.
The bullpen has pitched better, too.
The relievers did provide a white-knuckle ride in the seventh inning after Victor Martinez’s two-run single chased Ty Blach. The score was 5-2 when Cory Gearrin walked Jose Iglesias to load the bases with one out, then took an Ian Kinsler comebacker off his right calf for an RBI infield hit.
Gearrin had to convince Bochy and head athletic trainer Dave Groeschner to stay in the game. With two on and Gearrin seemingly unable to throw strikes, replacing him with Hunter Strickland seemed like a logical move. Bochy still stuck with Gearrin, the fourth Giants pitcher that inning.
“I think I made enough changes in the seventh,” Bochy joked.
The bruise on Gearrin’s leg seemed to fix him. Nick Castellanos hit a sacrifice fly to make it 5-4, but Gearrin struck out Justin Upton to preserve the lead and prevent Miguel Cabrera from hitting with runners on.
Gearrin knew who was on deck.
“As a pitcher, you know exactly where you’re at and who’s coming up,” he said. “They’ve got a good lineup. You don’t want to get deeper into it than you have to and face a guy like Cabrera.”
Strickland faced Cabrera to lead off the eighth and got a high pop to start a scoreless inning. Interim closer Sam Dyson got a seven-pitch save to ensure the victory for Blach, who had carried a three-hit shutout into the seventh.
The defense has been, well, Giants-like. Hwang played above the rest Wednesday, including a play that rated nine out of 10 on the difficulty scale. With a runner on and one out in the sixth, Hwang backhanded a fast Castellanos chopper that took a bad hop and got the out at first.
Just another playoff-caliber moment for a team that has no realistic expectation of sniffing October. But anyone in the room will aver this is a heck of a lot more fun than losing.