1 Giants: Belt’s three-run homer helps S.F. win in Denver.
Now that’s how a baseball game is played.
The Giants received big performances from pitcher Logan Webb and first baseman Brandon Belt to beat the Rockies 43 at Coors Field on Wednesday night and snap a threegame losing skid that was riddled with mistakes.
OK, this one didn’t start so clean. The first ball the Rockies put in fair territory, the Giants booted, their majorsleading 17th error. But from there, they played mostly sparkling baseball
OK, the Giants coughed up another home run to Nolan Arenado. But that’s pretty much a given when these two teams meet. It was a solo shot, so perhaps that’s as good as can be expected.
“We’ve clearly had challenges and issues to deal with on defense,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “More important than whether this was our best game or whether there was another game that was better is that we continue to fight back and bounce back and not let some of those sloppy moments spill into the next inning.
“I’m not saying we’ve been perfect in that regard, but we’ve seen some resilient players who want the ball hit to them again to prove they’re going to be better the next time around.”
For the first time in 2020, in the 13th game, a Giants starter got a win. Webb pitched into the sixth inning and gave up one earned run on four hits. He struck out four and walked none while lowering his ERA to 2.13.
The Giants got no wins from their starters in a season’s first 12 games for the first time in the modern era, since 1901. Webb, who feels comfortable throwing his new cutter against lefties, was unaware he was the first victorious starter until a reporter informed him.
“I was frustrated with the first two starts — the first one, I was supposed to go five, the next one, I was supposed to go more than five,” said Webb, who did neither but hasn’t surrendered more than one run in any of his starts. “I was frustrated. I want to get through five and let the bullpen go to work.”
Belt homered and doubled, his first two extrabase hits of the year, drove in three runs and scored twice. He opened on the injured list with an Achilles injury and got off to a slow start (2for14) but crushed a Jon Gray slider up, up, up and away.
The launch angle on the towering home run was 46 degrees, the kind of launch angle that usually leads to balls getting caught, not leaving the yard. This one barely cleared the wall, and suddenly the Giants had a 32 lead.
Next time up, Belt hit a ball a bit harder but more on a line, and it onehopped the wall for a twoout double, Belt’s 232nd in his career, matching Rich Aurilia for ninth place on the San Francisco list.
Noting the hot starts by Donovan Solano and Mike Yastrzemski, Belt said, “They’ve definitely carried us these first few games. It’s time for the rest of us to step up.a little bit and help out.”
Belt scored on Wilmer Flores’ sharp single to left. That made it 42, and Webb handed the tworun lead to the bullpen when walking off in the sixth inning with a runner aboard.
Caleb Baragar got out of the inning and impressively outdueled Trevor Story in a 10pitch atbat that ended with a foul popout. The next reliever, Tony Watson, wasn’t so fortunate and gave up the Arenado homer to make it a onerun game.
Tyler Rogers and Trevor Gott, who has all three of the Giants’ saves, pitched scoreless ball in the eighth and ninth.
Arenado sees Watson’s pitches extremely well (7for14), so why did Kapler use the lefty in that situation? Because of the new mustfacethreebatters rule, and a string of lefthanded hitters followed Arenado.
Webb retired Arenado twice and said he recalled what former Giants catcher Stephen Vogt told him: “‘It doesn’t matter who’s in the box. Attack him with what you’ve got.’ That’s a big thing that stuck with me.”
The game ended better than it started for the Giants. Solano, playing third base and the only defender on the left side of the infield against David Dahl, fumbled a grounder. Dahl advanced on a wild pitch and scored on Charlie Blackmon’s single.
It was the seventh straight game the Giants’ opponent scored first. Except this time, the errorprone Giants discovered what it’s like to be their foe. The Rockies made errors to begin the third and fourth innings, and the Giants took advantage of the second one.
Yastrzemski’s grounder was booted by Story at short, and one out later, Solano — who else? — got the Giants’ first hit (he’s hitting .436). That brought up Belt, who wasn’t about to take a day off with Gray on the mound.
Belt’s homer and double gave him 10 hits in 24 atbats against the righthander. In fact, Kapler was sure to play two other hitters with good success against Gray: Sandoval had been 5for13, Crawford 5for15.
Sandoval got two hits on the night. Crawford was his usual stalwart on defense, leaping high to take a hit from Arenado in the fourth inning.
The Rockies’ only earned run off Webb came when Sam Hilliard singled, stole second and scored on Dahl’s sacrifice fly.