Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports
If the Giants don’t want to break up the team, they needed Tyler Beede to have a strong start.
If the Giants wanted to be fresh and ready for Monday’s doubleheader in Colorado, they needed Tyler Beede to have a strong start.
If the Giants wanted to win the game, they needed more than a Tyler Beede strong start; they needed his bat, too.
Tyler Beede had it all.
The right-hander was brilliant, running into trouble in only his first and last innings, quieting the Brewers en route to an 8-3 Giants victory at Miller Park on Sunday.
The Giants took the series – their fourth straight – and remain five games back, on the very periphery of the wild-card picture, while improving to 43-49, having won eight of their past 10.
This was Beede at his best 12 days after his last start, having missed time away from the team following the death of his stepfather. He returned as sharp as he’s been this season, in which he seems to get better with every outing.
The Giants needed length, and Beede provided it, going 6 2/3 innings and letting up three runs on seven hits, no walks and seven strikeouts — tying a career high. He slowed down late and allowed a seventh-inning run, but Derek Holland got Christian Yelich to fly out to escape the jam.
Beede has not walked a batter in his past 13 2/3 innings, a span in which he’s allowed four earned runs and shrank his ERA from 6.45 to 5.44. He featured his slider more and had a solid curveball that complemented his mid-90s fastball. Seventy-two of his 103 pitches went for strikes, 17 of those swinging.
His bat contributed, too, going 2-for-4 with a key RBI single in the seventh, faking a bunt before grounding a single up the middle to drive in Donovan Solano.
If the Giants do, as expected, deal some of their strength away by July 31, the continued development of their 2014 first-round pick will be a selling point for the August and September Giants.
It was fortunate for the Giants that Beede looked so good, because so much of the team is feeling so bad. The starting lineup didn’t feature Alex Dickerson (back) and Austin Slater (sick), but Slater was forced into action when Evan Longoria needed to exit with what the team termed as left foot discomfort. It isn’t great timing ahead of Monday’s doubleheader.
And for much of the game, the Giants lineup played like it was under the weather, until the seventh inning came, when they put six runs on the board. The Giants strung together four straight hits – including that single from Beede – against Corbin Burnes to score two. Matt Albers came on and was not sharp, a bases-loaded walk and three singles accounting for three more runs. Solano was the star of the inning, recording a double and single.
The middle infielder, a good find by Farhan Zaidi, is now 9-for-26 (.346) with four RBIs in July.
Before the outburst, the only traction the Giants gained was on a fifth-inning homer from Brandon Belt and a second-inning sacrifice fly from Solano.
The Giants’ bullpen bounced back nicely after Will Smith blew a save Friday and Sam Dyson collapsed Saturday, with Holland escaping Beede’s danger and Mark Melancon escaping Holland’s danger in the eighth.