A win streak as power isn’t out at Oracle Park
If this rebuild works, the Giants will have a good, young lineup of everyday players like Joey Bart, Heliot Ramos, Marco Luciano, Will Wilson, Alexander Canario, maybe with Mike Yastrzemski and Evan Longoria sticking around to give fatherly advice and a big free agent to complete the puzzle.
The Giants would not need a platoon lineup like the one that Farhan Zaidi and Scott Harris built in 2020 and, nearly halfway through the miniaturized season, is performing exactly how the front office charted it.
The Giants are getting offense from all quarters, guys who started hot and those who had to work to get there, and had more than enough to back Johnny Cueto in Wednesday night’s 72 victory against the Angels in China Basin.
Manager Gabe Kapler has so many choices now, he confessed he struggled to write the lineup that produced the Giants’ first win streak in more than two weeks. He had to decide which hot hitter to sit and devised several combinations before benching Brandon Belt for Wilmer Flores against a lefthander, rookie Patrick Sandoval.
Kapler made the right call.
Flores hit a threerun homer for the game’s first runs in the third inning on a fourRBI night. Austin Slater, back in the lineup as designated hitter, hit a tworun homer.
Johnny Cueto carried a shutout into the sixth and allowed two runs. Caleb Baragar got a huge out to end that inning. Baragar, Tyler Rogers and Tony Watson finished a runfree night from the bullpen.
Cueto lost his shutout after another play not made proved costly for the Giants, this time by one of their better defenders.
Yastrzemski had a oneout Tommy La Stella drive tick off his glove for a oneout double, a tough play as Yastrzemski ran toward the wall, but one he thought he should have had.
With Cueto at 100 pitches and Mike Trout up for the third time, Kapler faced a tough choice. Keep Cueto in or summon Shaun Anderson a day after the reliever buzzed Trout twice.
Kapler no doubt preferred Cueto but visited the mound to make sure Cueto had more ammo in his arm.
Cueto caught Trout looking at a fastball up in the zone that Jim Reynolds had called a ball all night, but with two outs, Anthony Rendon doubled to put the Angels on the board.
Justrecalled Andrew Suarez failed three times to get the final out. He walked Shohei Ohtani and Jason Castro around an Albert Pujols RBI single.
Baragar saved a 52 lead by throwing a high 94mph fastball by Justin Upton for the third out.
Yastrzemski’s seventhinning double keyed a tworun rally that might have been bigger if not for a typically super diving catch from Trout on what proved to be a Longoria sacrifice fly.
That gave the Giants a 72 lead, same as the one they blew in the ninth inning in Cueto’s prior start against the A’s. With Trevor Gott sitting out lateinning relief, Watson got through the ninth 123.
Giants pitchers finally ended their franchiserecord streak of 21 games allowing a home run.
Meanwhile, Flores hit the Giants’ fifth threerun homer at Oracle Park this season, as many as they mustered in 2017 and 2019 combined. They busted out for six in 2018.
Slater walked and Longoria singled in the third ahead of Flores’ fifth homer. Slater’s first homer since he strained his elbow in Houston followed a Brandon Crawford double.