© Stan Szeto | USA Today
What was that Bruce Bochy said about lacking early hitting? A day after the Giants failed to get a hit through four innings, they put on their best early-inning offensive performance of the season, beating the Pittsburgh Pirates 13-10.
The Giants tied their season-high for runs in a game Friday night and set their season-high for runs through both three and four innings. They finished with seven and 10 runs by the end of the third and fourth inning, respectively. Before Friday, their season-high was six runs (twice) through three innings and nine runs through four.
It was clear from the start that Friday night would be a much different game than the Giants’ 10-5 loss to the Pirates on Thursday. Andrew McCutchen led the game off against his former team with a home run to the arcade in deep right-center field. From there, the Giants piled runs on in a way that they hadn’t done since a 13-8 win over the Saint Louis Cardinals on July 8.
It was an unrelenting offensive onslaught, and the Giants’ second-highest scoring game of the season, making you wonder where this type of offensive production – at any stage of the game, let alone early on – has been for the Giants lately.
The team’s 1-2-3 hitters in McCutchen, Buster Posey and Evan Longoria all batted in each of the first four innings, and every single starter for the Giants – even starting pitcher Derek Holland – got a hit.
Posey had a single in each of his first four at-bats and finished with 3 RBIs before he was relieved by Nick Hundley in the top of the seventh. McCutchen walked in his final four plate appearances after his leadoff home run.
The Giants had nine batters appear in a three-run first inning, 10 batters in a four-run third, and seven in a three-run fourth. They racked up 16 hits – their fifth-highest total of the season – with all but five coming as singles. Despite the general lack of power, the combination of continuous hitting and 11 walks gave the Giants a constant stream of baserunners that came home.
In sum, six batters – McCutchen, Posey, Longoria, Austin Slater, Alen Hanson and Steven Duggar – recorded RBIs.
While the pitching wasn’t good for the Giants, it was effective for most of the game. Derek Holland ended up allowing four earned runs on 10 hits in 6 1/3 innings, but he left the mound having given up just three runs. Pierce Johnson relieved Holland with runners on first and third.
Johnson walked his first batter to load the bases before committing the greatest pitching sin of all – allowing a grand slam. It came on a 3-1 fastball that Johnson left high and right over the plate, cutting the deficit to 11-7. A game that appeared to be settled was suddenly within reach of the Pirates with one swing.
But Sam Dyson came in to get out of the inning with an all-important strikeout that stopped the bleeding. In the bottom half of the inning, after ex-Giants pitcher Kyle Crick hit Longoria – to both Longoria and Bruce Bochy’s displeasure – Alen Hanson secured an RBI double with a face-first dive into second, giving the Giants a 12-7 lead.
But the five-run cushion wouldn’t last long. After allowing a single and securing two outs, Tony Watson made a pair of run-scoring mistakes – and nearly a third. First, he gave up a run-scoring triple into the triples alley, before Cervelli tormented the Giants again with a single.
As first baseman Josh Bell stepped to the plate, the Giants led just 12-9. And for a moment, it looked like that lead wouldn’t even last. Bell hit a ball nearly to the 399 feet marker in center field, leaving Duggar to back up to the wall and make a nervy catch to end the inning.
In the eighth, after three straight walks and a strikeout by Brandon Crawford, Austin Slater drove in the Giants’ 13th run of the night to tie the team’s season high.
As was the story of the game, the scoring continued into the ninth, as Adeiny Hechevarria homered off Will Smith to make it 13-10. Smith then closed out the game out in what somehow proved to be a near-save situation.