NOT HELD AT BAY
Teams combine for 8 long balls, including 4 served up by Greinke, as San Francisco evens series
Zack Greinke shelled in 8-6 loss to Giants. Teams total eight HRs.
SAN FRANCISCO — Carlos Correa craned his neck to check the course of another fly ball in the homerdome. Baseballs fly out of a recently renovated Oracle Park at a remarkable rate, but Correa hoped this one might sail foul.
Statcast assigned the fly ball a 4 percent hit probability when Wilmer Flores launched it.
Neither Flores nor pitcher Zack Greinke could discern the ball’s destination. Michael Brantley ran until meeting the wall. The baseball bounced 5 feet over it, the second home run on an afternoon full of them.
“It’s usually impossible to hit homers here,” Greinke said.
Greinke spent parts of seven seasons in the National League West before Houston acquired him. He threw 53 innings at Oracle Park before Saturday and never had allowed a home run. He surrendered four during the Astros’ 8-6 loss in San Francisco, succumbing to a streaking lineup in a ballpark that’s suddenly a launching pad.
“I heard about it, but I’ve never seen the ball carry like this,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “It always carried better in the daytime, but this is similar to Cincinnati today. It’s a different ballpark than when I was here.”
Baker managed at the ballpark for his final three seasons with the Giants and came as a visitor during stints in Cincinnati and Washington. Renovations in 2020 shrunk some of the dimensions. Dead center field went from 399 feet to 391. Left center and right center field lost 5 feet apiece, too.
“Barry Bonds would have hit 85 home runs under these conditions,” Baker said. “Any ball up in the air looked like it had a chance to leave the ballpark. We center-cut quite a few balls just above the knee, and we were over the heart of the plate. They didn’t miss them. We didn’t miss many, but they didn’t miss any.”
No National League lineup launches more home runs than the Giants. Only the Toronto Blue Jays hit more across all of baseball. San Francisco does not boast the Blue Jays ‘star power, but their results are better than anyone’s. Houston got a firsthand look.
Astros pitchers held the Giants without a home run in Friday’s 9-6 win, stretching San Francisco’s streak without one to four games, longer than any stretch of its surprising season.
Saturday started a new run, as San Francisco socked five of them to secure an 8-6 victory and even the series.
Brandon Crawford’s goahead single in the seventh against Cristian Javier supplied the Giants’ only run by means other than a homer.
The ball carried well on a beautiful afternoon near the bay. Aledmys Diaz delivered two home runs for the Astros. Martin Maldonado supplied a mammoth solo shot to tie the game in the sixth. The eight combined home runs tied for the most in any game in Oracle Park’s 21-year history.
The Giants now have two five-homer games here this season. They had two in the ballpark’s entire existence before it.
“We took (batting practice) on the field, and we knew early in the afternoon games, the ball flies a bit to left center,” Diaz said. “It’s not surprising. I’d played here in the past and I know in early afternoon games, the ball flies to left center a little bit.”
Diaz’s two home runs traveled at least 364 feet. Maldonado’s went 400. Three of the four home runs Greinke surrendered landed 386 feet away or farther, making any hand-wringing over conditions or renovations a moot point.
Greinke did not execute pitches. A good lineup punished him.
“I would guess three of them might have been homers still in any situation, same thing with ours, a lot of ours were hit pretty good,” Greinke said. “I’ve never seen home runs hit here, so I guess I was a little surprised, but they did hit the ball hard.”
Greinke recorded 12 outs, putting undue strain on a bullpen not equipped to handle it. San Francisco scored six times against him, all on home runs.
“They weren’t like cheap home runs,” Greinke said. “Besides the Flores one, as soon as they were hit, I knew they were homers. I think they should have been home runs. The Flores one, I don’t know, he hit it pretty good. It was high. I don’t know.”
Added Baker: “This was like a homerdome today.”