Bats come around as Blach gets third win
Lefty confounds Atlanta before running into jam in eighth; Melancon earns 10th save
SAN FRANCISCO — Like Matt Cain, Giants starter Ty Blach continues to dish out his best stuff in the pitcher-friendly confines of AT&T Park. The difference Saturday was that Blach actually received some run support, and plenty of it, as the Giants (21-30) returned to the win column with a 6-3 victory over the Atlanta Braves.
“That’s big,” Blach said, referring to the early run support he received. “It gives you a lot of confidence as a pitcher to go out there. You can keep the momentum on your side, get a zero, things can start rolling pretty good.”
After spoiling a seven-inning, onerun performance from Cain on Friday by getting shut out for the fifth time this season, the Giants’ offense made sure that it didn’t deal the same fate to Blach as the left-hander put together one of his strongest starts of the season, tossing seven shutout innings before surrendering a pair of earned runs in the eighth. He also recorded a season-high five strikeouts.
The Giants, who ranked 30th in runs per game after Friday’s loss to the Braves, scored five times before the start of the fifth inning, capitalizing on catcher Nick Hundley’s first home run of the season, first baseman Brandon Belt’s 10th of the year and four consecutive two-out hits in the fourth.
Manager Bruce Bochy predicted that the Giants’ bats would wake up when they returned home to AT&T Park Friday after scoring just six runs in the last three games of their
series in the hitter-friendly dimensions of Wrigley Field. His forecast proved to be accurate; it was just a day early.
Hundley snapped the Giants’ 18-inning scoreless streak in the bottom of the second, launching a two-run shot into the leftfield stands with Aaron Hill aboard. In the fourth, Belt became the first Giant to reach double digits in home runs this season, leading off with a blast to the deep part of the yard in right center.
After Hundley and Mac Williamson reached base on two-out singles later in the inning, Blach provided his own run support by smacking a line-drive single to center, driving in a run. Then, Denard Span made it four hits in a row, bringing in Williamson with an opposite-field double down the left field line.
“I thought this would happen last night, but (Jaime) Garcia was tough,” Bochy said. “They just turned it up a notch as far as being a bit more aggressive. We’ve been a little passive, a little behind on the fastball. Especially when you get into hitter’s counts, you want guys to let it go and we were fouling balls off the other way.
“Let it go. Just let the bat go. You can’t control the result, but you can control a good swing, and they had better swings tonight.”
The Giants added a sixth run in the eighth when Hundley collected his third hit and third RBI of the game, scoring Belt with a two-out bouncer up the middle. The Braves scored a third run in the ninth off reliever Derek Law before closer Mark Melancon came in to record the last two outs and his 10th save of the season.
The Giants had scored 37 runs in eight games before the bats went cold in Chicago on Tuesday.
“I really feel like we’ve been trending in the right direction as an offense,” Belt said. “We had a rough couple of games the past four, five games, but overall, over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been moving in the right direction. It’s just going up there with a sound approach and getting good pitches to hit.”
With his fourth consecutive quality start, Blach (3-2), who’s filling in for Madison Bumgarner in the Giants’ rotation, improved to 2-1 with a 1.87 ERA in five home starts this season. He allowed the leadoff hitter to reach base in the third, fourth, fifth and sixth innings, but managed to quickly pitch his way out trouble, inducing 6-4-3 double plays in the fourth and the sixth.
“His fastball, his down angle, his plain was really good. They weren’t squaring him up very much, getting a lot of ground balls,” Hundley said, evaluating his pitcher’s performance. “In the eighth inning, if a couple of those balls are a foot either way, we turn another double play, and he’s in the ninth unscathed.”
Blach also did his best Bumgarner impression at plate, adding a single in the seventh to go 2 for 3 on the night with an RBI. But the 26-year-old lefty, who’s making a case to keep a spot in the rotation when Bumgarner returns after the All-Star break, isn’t planning to trade in the rosin bag for a bat just yet.
“Anytime you can get out there and give your team a chance to win a ballgame on the mound, that’s our main job,” he said. “The hitting’s just a little extra bonus sometimes.”
Outfielder Jarrett n Parker took on-field batting practice for the first time since he broke his right clavicle in April. The Giants expect the 28-yearold outfielder to begin a rehab assignment in about a week. Bochy is “hopeful” that Parker could make his return to the Giants lineup in three weeks.
Conor Gillaspie’s recovery n from back spasms has hit a setback. The Giants were expecting to activate Gillaspie from the 10-day disabled list at some point during their threegame set with the Braves this weekend, but the 29year-old third baseman underwent an MRI procedure Saturday after experiencing back tightness while swinging a bat.