Brandon Belt homers in both games as Giants split pair.
Two home runs in doubleheader split is Mayslike
This is Willie Mays’ month, with the Giants’ Hall of Famer turning 90 Thursday, and Brandon Belt got in some early celebrating Tuesday.
The first baseman became the second player in San Francisco history to homer in the first inning in both ends of a doubleheader. The other man: Mays, on May 22, 1965.
“A pretty cool week so far,” said Belt, who called it an honor just to be in the same sentence with Mays.
The Giants and Rockies split the two seveninning games at Coors Field and San Francisco’s record is an NLbest 1812. The Giants lead the NL West by 1½ games over the Padres and the Dodgers.
Belt walloped a grand slam in the first inning of the Giants’ 124 Game 1 victory — after singling in a run earlier in the inning — becoming the first Giants player with five or more RBIs in an inning since Juan Uribe had six in the second at Wrigley Field on Sept. 23, 2010.
In the second game, an 86 Colorado victory in which the Rockies scored six times in their final atbat, Belt smoked a tworun shot. Why are there Belt Wars again, exactly?
Game 1 brought out the best in the Giants’ offense. Buster Posey capped the team’s 10run first inning
with a solo shot and he has hit seven homers in 29 games, the fastest the sixtime AllStar has reached seven in a season. He recorded seven in the first 30 games of the 2014 season.
“He’s clearly using the whole field, that’s one thing that’s really standing out,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “It’s linetoline, and when he’s hitting the ball to the opposite field, it’s with authority and it’s carrying. Finally, I think the confidence is really coming through. I think he feels healthy and strong in the batter’s box, and that’s allowing him to to ask his body to do things, and his body’s responding.”
New outfielder Mike Tauchman started things for San Francisco with leadoff hits in both games and he scored twice in the first inning of Game 1 and came home on Belt’s second homer of the day in Game 2. With Mike Yastrzemski, Tommy La Stella and Donovan Solano all on the injured list, Tauchman could be a regular at or near the top of the order, though Yastrzemski could be
back from an oblique injury on Friday.
Brandon Crawford smacked a tworun homer in the sixth in Game 1, moving the shortstop past Rich Aurilia and into 10th place on San Francisco’s alltime RBI list with 576.
Steven Duggar provided a tworun, goahead single in the fifth inning of the second game and Wilmer Flores added a tworun shot in the
sixth.
Aaron Sanchez started Game 1 for the Giants and allowed three soft singles in the fourth followed by a grand slam by Raimel Tapia.
Alex Wood gave up a homer, too, in Game 2, a tworun shot by C.J. Cron that tied the game in the fourth. In four starts with San Francisco, Wood has yet to allow more than two runs.
Closer Jake McGee, who was released by the Rockies after the 2019 season, allowed a tworun double by Trevor Story in the seventh inning of Game 2 and an RBI single by Ryan McMahon. Rookie Camilo Doval replaced McGee and allowed a bloop single by Cron and a gamewinning threerun homer by Charlie Blackmon.
“He’s not responsible for that loss,” Kapler said of Doval. “He did everything that we could possibly ask of him.”
McGee, who had not worked in a week, has allowed seven runs in his past seven appearances. “Obviously, he’s not at his best,” Kapler said, “and I think that’s important to acknowledge.”