Giants blast three home runs as they rally to beat D’backs
SAN FRANCISCO >> The Giants began the final third of their season Sunday still very much alive in the postseason race, the truncated schedule and expanded format giving even rebuilding clubs such as San Francisco a chance to play in October.
Maybe it’s too early to scoreboard watch, but it’s certainly not too soon
to treat every inning — no matter the point in a game — with a win-now frame of mind.
“This is where you start to push players to their limits as it relates to their freshness,” manager Gabe
Kapler said before his team’s 4-2 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks. “And you begin to ask more of everyone around you.”
Amid a blistering heat-wave and poor air quality, the Giants did not melt when the Diamondbacks scored two early runs at Oracle Park.
Chadwick Tromp, Donovan Solano and Brandon Belt hit home runs, and Wilmer Flores, Darin Ruf
and Alex Dickerson made sensational defensive plays. Johnny Cueto pitched into the sixth inning, and the bullpen was on its game.
If Kapler indeed asked more of everyone, they answered the call Sunday as the Giants improved to 20-21 with 19 games to go.
Even Cueto was making requests, motioning to the stadium’s music operator to play something more upbeat than Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. music as he warmed up in the outfield before the game. Cueto tilted his head into his hands as if he were falling asleep.
By the time Cueto woke up, the Diamondbacks led 2-0.
Tim Locastro deposited Cueto’s third pitch, a four-seam fastball, over the center-field fence for a home run. Kole Calhoun followed with a single to right and moved to third when David Peralta singled to center. Twelve pitches in, Cueto had given up three hits without an out.
Josh Rojas’ fly out to deep right five batters into the game knocked in Calhoun for a 2-0 lead, not exactly how Kapler envisioned the afternoon starting one day after the manager used seven relievers in a narrow victory.
But Cueto isn’t 11-3 against Arizona for no reason. The veteran settled in and started to pitch as he did a week earlier against the Diamondbacks when he only allowed one run.
After giving up three consecutive hits to start the game, Cueto retired 11 of 12 batters. He ran into trouble in the fifth when the Diamondbacks put runners on first and third with one out.
Locastro tried to safety squeeze in a run, but first baseman Flores scooped up the ball and fired a strike to Tromp, who applied a sweep tag to get Nick Ahmed before the Arizona runner crossed the plate.
Kapler singled out that play before taking a postgame question.
“That was the most important moment, most important play of the game,” Kapler said. “The safety squeeze is such a difficult play to make, and such a difficult thing to defend. He made an awesome read, left first base early, made a great throw to the plate. I know Wilmer has taken some heat over the season. That was just a tremendous defensive play.”
A walk loaded the bases, but Cueto’s 83-mph changeup on a
full count struck out Peralta to keep the Giants’ deficit at just one run.
The Diamondbacks loaded the bases again in the sixth, ending Cueto’s day. But Arizona came up empty as Caleb Baragar got Jon Jay to hit a shallow fly to left and Ruf sprinted in to make a sliding catch.
Ruf said he anticipated the ball might come his way, given that Baragar likes to use his fastball in those situations and the lefthand-hitting Jay would probably try to swing to the opposite field.
“I was just really trying to get a good break on the ball,” Ruf said. “Luckily, I was able to bring it in.”
The defensive plays kept the score tight enough that the home runs that followed flipped the scoreboard.
Solano’s two-run homer to left in the sixth put the Giants ahead 3-2.
Belt finished the scoring with a pinch-hit home run in the seventh that sailed over the rightfield wall. The blast — Belt’s seventh this season — raised his batting average to .340 and on-base plus slugging percentage to 1.117.
“He’s been amazing,” Dickerson said. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen where every single atbat he has is quality. To be honest, it’s not unexpected. I got to see him from the other side, and he’s always a guy you feared.”
Tromp’s solo home run in the third cut Arizona’s advantage to 2-1.
Dickerson capped an afternoon of Giants highlights when — after replacing Ruf in left — he just got the thumb of his glove under the ball to make a diving catch and rob Carson Kelly of reaching base.
The Diamondbacks asked for a replay review, but the call on the field stood.
“I was honestly just as curious as anybody else,” Dickerson said. “It wasn’t like a super-clean catch. Happy it stood.”
• The Giants know a thing or two — or three — about championship ring ceremonies, having won the World Series in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Sunday, the young players in the organization got to experience one on a smaller scale as the Giants held a pregame ring ceremony to honor the current big leaguers who helped the Sacramento River Cats win the 2019 Triple-A championship . ... The Giants recalled right-hander Rico Garcia from their alternate training site in Sacramento before Sunday’s game and optioned left-hander Andrew Suarez to the alternate training site.