GIANTS BASH WAY PAST PADRES
SAN DIEGO — Petco Park may be regarded as one of the most pitcher-friendly parks in all of baseball, but someone forgot to remind the San Francisco Giants before their trip to San Diego this week.
That loud echo reverberating throughout the Gaslamp District the past two nights has been the sound produced from Giants hitters barreling up baseballs by the dozen.
The conductor of the Giants’ Petco Park symphony is third baseman Evan Longoria, who homered into the second deck of the left field bleachers in the third inning before clobbering a ball off the top of the Western Metal Supply Co. building in the fifth.
Longoria’s first five-RBI game since September 15, 2016 and his second multi-homer game during his Giants tenure led San Francisco to a 10-4 series-clinching win over the Padres.
Longoria was hardly the only Giants player making noise in the batter’s box as two of his teammates, shortstop Donovan Solano and center fielder Kevin Pillar, combined for seven hits.
The only sound heard nearly as often as the crack of the bat on Tuesday was the thud of a cleat spike touching home plate. The Giants have scored double-digit runs in three consecutive games for the first time since August 2325, when they scored 38 runs in a three-game series at Oracle Park against the Reds.
The Giants’ third consecutive offensive explosion came in their third consecutive game against a left-handed starter. After wearing down Dbacks southpaw Robbie Ray in Sunday’s 10-4 win and dominating Padres rookie Logan Allen in a 13-2 victory Monday, the Giants pounded out 11 hits and seven runs in five innings against Matt Strahm on Tuesday.
Another impressive showing at the plate overshadowed one of the finest nights of rookie Tyler Beede’s season.
Beede set a new career-high with seven innings as he allowed just four hits and one in his eighth start of the season. The rookie has battled command issues throughout his professional career, but for the first time since a July 6, 2017 outing at Triple-A, Beede started a game and did not walk a batter.
Beede made his second career start at Petco Park on April 15, 2018 and failed to complete four innings. The right-hander spent that evening waiting for a delayed commercial flight back to Sacramento to rejoin the TripleA club and spent the rest of the season in the minors.
With his third career quality start on Tuesday, Beede is giving the Giants every reason to keep him on the team charter the rest of the year.
A few other Giants players are thriving in their own auditions.
With three hits including a leadoff home run to open the game, Solano extended his hit streak to nine games, which is now tied for the longest active streak in baseball. The Giants wanted to give Brandon Crawford an extra day off to rest a tight hamstring and Solano showcased his value as a utility infielder with another strong showing.
Right fielder Austin Slater aced another test Tuesday with a pair of doubles and two more RBIs. After earning a promotion from Triple-A Sacramento Monday, Slater tripled and homered in his season debut and followed it up with another solid showing.
The only thing Pillar may be auditioning for is the opportunity to play for a contender later this summer, but he’s been the Giants’ best hitter over the last month. The center fielder recorded his second four-hit game in three days as he’s raised his average by 35 points in the last three weeks.
All of the contributions Giants hitters made in Tuesday’s win supplemented the output of Longoria, who added a seventh-inning double to finish with four hits for the first time since joining the Giants. Longoria and Pillar became the first Giants teammates with four hits in the same game since Joe Panik, Matt Duffy and Justin Maxwell all had four hits in a 15-2 win over the Phillies on July 10, 2015.