Longoria homers; Giants reach .500.
Lefty shuts down L.A. to secure series win
SAN FRANCISCO >> After meeting 10 times before the end of April for the first time in their history, the Giants and Dodgers won’t face each other again until the middle of June.
That’s good news for Los Angeles, but if the Dodgers had their way, they would prefer to wait a lot longer than that to face Giants lefty Ty Blach.
With a six-inning, two-run effort in Sunday’s 4-2 final, Blach pitched the Giants to a series win and secured his second victory of the season against his club’s rival.
“It’s hard to explain when a certain pitcher does well against a certain club,” manager Bruce
Bochy said.
“We’ve had that against us.
But he seems to just pick it up against them.”
In his third start against Los Angeles this season, the Giants’ offense finally aided Blach’s cause, providing him with early run support that allowed him to pitch with a threerun lead from the second inning on.
“It definitely puts some momentum on your side,” Blach said. “You know you can just go out there and attack and have some wiggle room as a starter and it gives you a lot of confidence going in there. A lot of fun seeing that early on.”
After Dodgers starter Kenta Maeda retired the first two hitters in the bottom of the first, a Buster Posey double and a Brandon Belt walk brought the Giants’ hottest right-handed hitter to the plate.
While the Giants entered the day
hitting .204 with runners in scoring position, third baseman Evan Longoria drove a Maeda slider into the left field corner that appeared destined to put the Giants ahead 2-0. However, the ball landed just to the left of the chalk in foul territory, forcing Longoria to return to the batter’s box.
Longoria smoked the very next pitch — a 2-1 slider — into the left center field seats for a three-run home run that pushed the Giants ahead 3-0. It was Longoria’s fifth home run in the club’s last 12 games, and helped him pass Belt for the team lead with 15 RBIs.
The former Tampa Bay Rays franchise cornerstone started the year 7-for-47 (.149) at the plate, but the home run marked his 14th hit in his last 39 at-bats.
“The start that I got off to, obviously I could only go up from there,” Longoria said. “That’s what I kept telling myself every day. It’s got to get better. Just keep working. Keep believing.”
His three-run home run was the fourth hit by the Giants this April after the club hit seven three home runs total in 2017.
The only Giant in a better rhythm than Longoria helped add to the lead in the bottom of the third, as Belt crushed a 1-0 fastball high off the bricks on the right center field wall. Belt’s double scored Posey from first and raised the first baseman’s OPS to 1.040, the highest mark of any Giants regular.
“It’s always up to the heart of the order over the course of the season to drive in those runs,” Bochy said. “That’s what they’re there for, that’s what they’re paid to do.”
The 4-0 cushion stood until the
top of the sixth, when Dodgers center fielder Chris Taylor yanked a double down the left field line to lead off the inning. Blach nearly pitched around the hit, recording back-to-back outs before Kiké Hernandez lined a laser past the golden glove of Brandon Crawford to cut the deficit by a run.
Bochy let Blach start the seventh inning, but a broken bat infield single by Max Muncy brought his day to a close. Muncy scored on an RBI single from pinch hitter Joc Pederson against reliever Sam Dyson, but the two runs charged to Blach’s ledger are the most he’s allowed in any of his three outings against the Dodgers this season.
In seven career starts against the Dodgers, Blach’s ERA is now 1.64, as he’s allowed eight earned runs in 44 innings of work.
“It was a good one,” Blach said. “We needed this series win. Big for us to continue this trend. Three series in a row so it was nice to get that one today.”
It also helped that a day after a doubleheader, Bochy had his three most trusted relievers — Dyson, Tony Watson and Hunter Strickland — available to pick up where Blach left off.
With a 1-2-3 ninth inning, Strickland picked up his fifth save in the last eight days and his fourth of the season against Los Angeles.
“Obviously I want to be out there every day,” Strickland said. “We’re here to win the game. One day at a time. But to be out there and get in a groove, it definitely helps.”
With their third straight series vic- tory, the Giants have a chance to end the month of April with a record above .500. Excluding months in which the Giants played three games or fewer, a defeat of the Padres on Monday would give the franchise its first winning month since June of 2016.