SEATTLE — If a reset is what the Giants are looking for, they couldn’t have asked for more than the way they started the second half of Friday against the Mariners.
Jung Hoo Lee led a winning pitch, Bryce Eldridge and Willy Adames provided power, and Landen Roupp clipped the Mariners’ command for a convincing 7-0 victory.
For the sixth time this season, San Francisco won its third straight game.
Now, for the real test of whether or not this is just a mirage: Can they stretch it to four for the first time all year?
It’s hard not to like their chances if they can repeat performances like the one they produced on Friday.
Logan Webb got the ball on Saturday, and Rupp gave him a good starting spot with seven innings of shutout ball.
He didn’t strike out until the fourth inning and surrendered just two runs the entire game, getting a ton of weak contact and some solid defense behind him.
After allowing just one run in eight innings in his final start before the break, Rupp lowered his ERA to 3.98 after climbing to a season-worst 4.55 two starts ago.
Now two innings behind his previous career high (106⅔), the Giants skipped Rupp’s final inning during the tournament before intermission. Taking 11 days off only seems to have helped.
For once, it was the Giants who took advantage of some sloppy play, as Seattle committed a pair of errors that led to Lee extending the Giants’ lead to 3-0 in the sixth.
Lee reached on a fielder’s choice after Heliot Ramos singled to lead off in the first inning, but reached second when shortstop Colt Emerson threw into foul ground trying to convert two.
He then scored when second baseman Cole Young couldn’t handle a ground ball off Arraez’s bat.
Playing a key role in it all: catcher Drew Cavanaugh, who reached base all three times he came to the plate and used his body to block Young’s path to a grounder as he went to second.
Lee (3-for-4), Cavanaugh (2-for-2), Ramos (2-for-5) and Casey Schmidt (2-for-5) all contributed several hits.
Perhaps the most encouraging sign came from Adams, who blew the game wide open by winning San Francisco’s eighth grand slam of the year. The struggling shortstop was 0-for-3 when he came in with the bases loaded in the seventh.
He lined an 0-1 pass over the wall in right center, heading downfield, to extend the lead to 7-0.
The Navy class held a few drives deep in the outfield, with Schmidt and Seattle’s Luke Raleigh sending a fly ball to the center field wall, but Eldridge’s power was the first to prove impenetrable. Eldridge caught a break on the outside corner of the end of his racket but still gave it enough oomph to sneak it over the wall — and out of the reach of leaping center fielder Victor Robles.
Eldridge’s ninth home run of the season produced the first run for either team, opening a 2-0 lead for the Giants in the top of the fifth. That turned out to be enough.
What does it mean
It’s now been more than a week since the Giants’ last loss, the longest they’ve gone all season without the number in the loss column going up.
Who’s hot?
Of all the Giants, manager Tony Vitiello believes few need the All-Star break more than Lee.
It’s one of the reasons the captain framed it as a positive when he had to break the news to the third-year player that his first inning didn’t merit his first All-Star selection.
Lee looked newly comfortable as he hit a pair of singles in his first two games. The only piece of communication that wasn’t hit hard was a breaking single for his third hit of the night. He reached base for the fourth time when he was hit by a pitch, loading the bases for Adams.
It was Lee’s 30th multi-hit effort of the season, trailing only Luis Arez and Schmidt, but only his second since June 24. In 17 games before the break, Lee was batting .164 (10-for-61), with just one walk and three extra-base hits, resulting in a .404 OPS.
Who is not
For a team looking for a fresh start in the second half, its biggest star didn’t get the message.
The only Giant to stay off the bases in the 12-hit performance was Rafael Devers, who struck out three times while going 0-for-5. Devers went down swinging on three pitches in his first at-bat, then swung through another fastball at the letters to strike out three in his next.
Devers briefly raised his OPS over .800 for the first time all season in the Giants’ final series before intermission, but a no-hitter performance brought it back to .789.
the next
After a comfortable few days representing the Giants in the All-Star Game in Philadelphia, Webb made his first start in the second inning against Seattle right-hander and Bay Area native Brian Waugh.
First pitch is scheduled for 5:08 PM PT, with Fox broadcasting the game nationally.
With 10 days having passed since his last start, Webb will try to start the second half better than the way he went at the break, surrendering 12 points over his last two games.