Rodriguez helps finish sweep
One of those endless showcases that wannabe ballplayers are encouraged to attend is the World Wood Bat Association Championships, held every October in Jupiter, Fla. In 2010, two South Florida high schoolers who had played against one another since Little League drove up together and shared a room.
Even in the fanciful dreams of their teenaged minds, Andrew Suarez and Dereck Rodriguez could not have envisioned that nearly a decade later they would wear the same big-league uniform and star in back-to-back games to give their team an immaculately timed lift.
A day after Suarez blanked the Phillies for seven innings, Rodriguez became the first Giants pitcher in nearly nine years to win his first big-league start, getting the ritual beer shower in the clubhouse after Sunday’s 6-1 victory.
After an 11-16 May that included four losses in Philadelphia, the Giants completed a suffocating payback sweep behind two rookie starters and a third, Chris Stratton, the wizened owner of 22 big-league starts.
The Giants will carry a fourgame win streak into a series against the Diamondbacks that will include Madison Bumgarner’s 2018 debut Tuesday night.
The Phillies scored one run all weekend at AT&T Park, on pitcher Jake Arrieta’s home run off Rodriguez in the third inning Sunday.
“Bumgarner told me he gave one up to him a few years ago, so that made me feel better,” Rodriguez said.
Bumgarner failed to mention a teeny detail. Arrieta’s threerun homer against the Big Fella happened in Game 3 of the 2016 Division Series against the Cubs.
The Giants came back to win that game, too.
Arrieta was bidding for his third consecutive scoreless start Sunday when the Giants jumped him for five runs in the sixth inning, as many as he surrendered in all of May.
Gorkys Hernandez punched a one-out single to center one pitch after Arrieta sent him diving to the dirt to avoid a scalp-seeking missile. Pinchhitter Alen Hanson then showed no signs of his hamstring injury when he legged out an infield hit.
Joe Panik, completing a dream comeback weekend, singled home the tying run. Buster Posey hit the go-ahead single and Andrew McCutchen skied a three-run homer just inside the pole in the arcade, a ball that probably would not have left the park on a typically cool and windy day.
Posey added a homer against Hector Neris, who drilled him last year to create some ill will, and the Giants completed their big weekend with two other feel-good moments.
Mark Melancon struck out the side in the seventh, his first inning of the season, and Hunter Pence got a huge ovation before and after he hit a long flyball to center as a pinchhitter in the eighth.
And though the Phillies won the season series four games to three, the Giants got the last word against a rising team.
“They had their way with us in Philly. They beat us up pretty good,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “You always want to get even. The guys were determined to punch back, and they did it against three really good starters.”
Rodriguez has given every indication he can be one, too. In Little League, he was a catcher like his dad, Ivan. Then he became an outfielder. The Twins turned him into a pitcher.
He has thrown two bigleague games, Tuesday night as a reliever in Denver and Sunday as a starter. Both ended with a comebacker that hit him on his right shin. At least Maikel Franco’s bounced a few times before it hit him.
“I’m going to need to pitch with one of those shin guards that soccer players wear,” he joked before heading into the tunnel to meet his mom and other friends and relatives.
Ivan Rodriguez was not here but expects to see his son pitch in Florida next week.