June 6th, 2024
Michael Reynolds
@mreynoldsMLBPHOENIX -- The Giants were done wasting chances.
Mired in a six-game losing streak and on the heels of what an angry manager Bob Melvin called “a terrible game,” the Giants’ offense came alive in a big way in Wednesday’s series finale at Chase Field, riding a six-run third inning to a 9-3 victory over the D-backs.
The first time through the order looked like it was going to be more of the same for San Francisco, which had been limited to 18 runs during the losing streak. The Giants stranded three runners in the first two innings while watching the D-backs take another early lead. But once leadoff man Austin Slater opened the third with a single off lefty Jordan Montgomery, the floodgates opened.
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The next batter, Heliot Ramos, continued his breakout with a long two-run homer to center, giving the Giants their first lead of the series. Ramos finished the game 2-for-2 with four walks. Since joining the club on May 8, the 24-year-old outfielder is hitting .304 with five homers, 19 RBIs and a .407 on-base percentage in 26 games.
“He’s just so balanced, every take, every swing. He’s just completely locked in,” Melvin said. “I mean, who walks four times? Especially when you’re hitting like he is, you want to swing.
“It’s really cool to watch because he’s such a good kid. It’s been kind of a hard road for him to get here, and he’s taken full advantage of it.”
The Giants were just getting started.
After Ramos’ homer, singles by Thairo Estrada and Jorge Soler sandwiched around a Matt Chapman walk set the stage for a Wilmer Flores grand slam. It was the Giants’ fourth grand slam of the season, and Flores’ first since May 7, 2022, against the Cardinals’ Steven Matz.
Mike Yastrzemski followed with a single that chased Montgomery, and San Francisco had the bases loaded against Logan Allen, but the lefty avoided further damage. All told, the Giants sent 12 men to the plate during the 27-minute half-inning, tallying six hits and three walks.
“We've been kind of aggressive the entire series on their starting pitchers,” Melvin said. “We got a good pitcher out of the game, made him work, and obviously Flo’s grand slam was huge.”
Benefiting from the run support but perhaps not the long layoff between innings was right-hander Jordan Hicks, who was lifted with two outs in the fourth after walking in a run. Hicks struck out seven, but he never looked comfortable, with six hits and four walks leading to stressful innings throughout his 92-pitch outing.
“Just a lot of pitches. He almost had 100 pitches in 3 2/3,” Melvin said. “He wanted to stay in the game … [but] it just felt like it was time to get him out.”
Hicks appeared rattled from the jump, visibly jawing with home-plate umpire Chris Guccione over some would-be strike calls he thought were missed against the first two batters of the game. After catcher Curt Casali had to play peacemaker when Guccione pulled his mask up to bark back at Hicks, Hicks seemingly blew off steam by firing a couple pickoff throws to check D-backs outfielder Corbin Carroll at first.
Hicks regrouped to strike out Blaze Alexander for the first out of the game, but not before a third unsuccessful pickoff attempt of Carroll triggered an automatic balk and sent him to second base. Hicks then struck out Joc Pederson, but he left a splitter up to Lourdes Gurriel Jr., who made Hicks pay for giving Carroll the extra base by dropping an RBI single into left.
Two innings later, it was Melvin’s turn to have an animated discussion about the strike zone, as TV cameras showed the manager letting Guccione have it after the bottom of the third.
“That’s a hard game to call for an umpire, and I went and told him that afterwards,” Melvin said. “It’s excruciating to have to call a game like that, with so many really close pitches at the bottom of the zone. I’m very understanding of that. I was just trying to stick up for my team.”
The bullpen took over a 6-2 game and did enough to hold on as the Giants’ offense went back into coming-up-short mode, twice leaving the bases loaded while stranding 16 before Soler’s 427-foot solo shot in the eighth inning finally gave San Francisco another run.
It took three hours and thirty minutes, the Giants’ longest nine-inning game of the season, but their losing streak is over and they head into Friday’s showdown with the defending World Series champion Rangers with some forward momentum and a happier manager than they had after Tuesday’s clunker.
“[Melvin] kinda squeezed a little bit,” Soler said via interpreter Erwin Higueros. “He kinda let us know how he was feeling [postgame last night], so today we were motivated to win for him.”
