Joc Pederson padded his All-Star season and J.D. Davis continued to be the trade deadline gift that keeps giving to start San Francisco’s last home stand of 2022.
Pederson homered and tripled, staying hot in his first September out of postseason contention. Davis went 3-for-4 with a solo shot — his seventh in 42 games since joining the Giants.
Giants’ pitchers made the runs more than enough. Despite a rocky first inning, Logan Webb improved his season ERA from 2.93 to 2.90 with five strong innings. Tyler Rogers continued his Scoreless September with two clean innings. And Camilo Doval struck out two to strand the bases loaded in the ninth.
With the 5-2 victory, the Giants (76-78) have won seven of their past eight contests. They need to go at least 5-3 the rest of the way to finish .500 or better.
“It is encouraging, the way we’ve been playing,” Pederson said postgame. “It’s a lot more fun.”
Webb, already on a pitch limit to offramp his taxing season, needed 27 pitches to get through the first inning. Three Rockies singles, including one on a deftly executed hit-and-run, put the Rockies on top 1-0.
But the Giants immediately erased the deficit in the bottom half of the first. Pederson, on German Marquez’s first pitch, launched his 23rd home run of 2022. The towering, 42-degree launch angle shot to center gave Pederson his 25th leadoff blast of his career.
San Francisco added another run as Thairo Estrada doubled, advanced to third on a deep flyout to the right field corner, and crossed on a shallow sacrifice fly.
And after a tough first frame, Webb settled in. He spun out of a jam in the second, retired the side in the third and struck out two in a scoreless fourth.
When Webb went back out for the fifth at 66 pitches, he had an extra run to work with thanks to Davis.
And with it, he struck out Garrett Hampson, Ryan McMahon and Yonathan Daza. That made five straight strikeouts to end his outing. He knew that fifth inning would be has last, and knew he could unload everything he had.
“Even in a normal start, you get to certain inning or something and kind of know,” Webb said postgame. “At that point, I think it was 3-1. Those are points where you empty the tank.”
Davis’ solo shot in the fourth gave the Giants a 3-1 edge and inflated his numbers even more. With a fully healthy bottom hand, he’s supplied immediate and significant power to the Giants.
Since getting traded to SF, Davis has posted a .933 OPS. His homer on Tuesday came on the heels of his third career four-hit game.
“If he doesn’t have the most power of anybody on our team, it’s right there with anybody,” manager Gabe Kapler told reporters after Davis’ four-hit game.
Davis’ sixth-inning single off Marquez made him 3-for-3 on the night and gave him seven hits in his previous eight at-bats.
Notably, Davis’ splits on the season are even — .779 OPS vs lefties, .734 vs. righties. If he can improve defensively, he can make a strong case to play regularly.
After two clean Rogers innings to extend his scoreless September streak to 13.1 innings, the Giants tacked on two more runs. Pederson wheeled to third on a sharp grounder over the first-base bag to drive in Joey Bart, then scored on an Estrada single. Pederson’s RBI was generously scored a triple.
Scott Alexander and Doval capped the night — despite Doval’s one-run ninth — pushing SF’s September record to 15-10. SF could complete a season with only two winning months: the first and last.