Williamson homer wins another one
If your name is Mac Williamson and you want to give the entire stadium the tremors, just run full-speed toward a Bryce Harper foul ball, trip over the bullpen mound, slam head-first into a wall and stay on the ground for a spell.
If you want to let everyone know you’re OK, swing at the first pitch an inning later and rocket a ball 423 feet onto the netting above the kale garden in center field.
Williamson homered Tuesday night for the third time in five games since his promotion
Friday, with two outs in the sixth inning, the difference in a 4-3 victory over the Nationals.
The Giants have their first three-game win streak and their second consecutive series victory regardless of how they fare against Max Scherzer on Wednesday.
They have taken four of their past five games in a run fueled largely by homers from Williamson and Brandon Belt. On Tuesday, both homered in the same game for the first time.
“That’s what power does for you,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We didn’t have that last year and it caught up with us.”
The Giants have hit 25 home runs this year, with little doubt that the three blows from Williamson totaling 1,321 feet were the catalyst for an upswing that has gotten the Giants a game shy of .500 after they were 7-11.
Williamson is fighting not to fall into the hero trap and spread credit for the win like a power dealer, to starter Ty Blach, who had lost about 9 pounds after a bout of food poisoning that required an IV as late as Monday, to Belt and to the bullpen, which supplied four shutout innings.
“The way Blach threw, the way (Chris Stratton) threw last night and the way the guys threw in Anaheim, to me, that’s the story,” Williamson said. “Belt hit a huge two-run homer. If he doesn’t get that, my homer doesn’t mean anything.”
The medical staff went through the concussion drill after Williamson’s meeting with a low, padded well down the left-field line with two outs in the fifth inning and the Nationals threatening to break a 3-3 tie they forged an inning earlier on Michael Taylor’s three-run homer off Blach.
With two on and Blach behind in the count 2-0, Harper hit the foul ball. Williamson raced over and got his glove on it before tumbling over the bullpen mound and hitting the wall.
Williamson braced himself enough to limit the damage to his head, although he also spiked himself in the calf and banged his elbow. He seemed more angry that he dropped the ball than injured.
“I felt fine then and I feel fine now,” he said, although he was warned to check for delayed symptoms
The dropped ball didn’t matter. Blach got Harper to ground out to end the inning, then watched Williamson slam another tape-measure job, off starter Tanner Roark.
“Mac and I have been as close as we can be since we were drafted together in 2012,” Blach said. “We’ve been everywhere together. We were roommates in several different places. It’s always fun when we pick each other up.”
Belt’s fifth homer in six games was a two-run liner into the Arcade that gave the Giants a 3-0 lead in the fourth against Roark.
If the names sound familiar together, they should. Belt homered off Roark in the 18th inning to win Game 2 of the 2014 Division Series.
Hunter Strickland saved that game, and he saved this one for the revelatory Reyes Moronta, who got his first big-league win. He lowered his ERA to 0.64 with two more shutout innings. Sam Dyson got Ryan Zimmerman to hit into a first-pitch double play with two on after a no-brainer intentional walk to Harper with a runner on second in the eighth.