San Francisco – The Giants didn’t wait long for their comeback after revenge Saturday night’s loss in extra-innings. In today’s matinee, San Francisco’s lineup pounced all over the Los Angeles Dodgers starter James Paxton.
The day was highlighted by a five-run fourth inning, in the Giants’ 10-4 win over the Dodgers. They recorded their first and only series win over the Dodgers this season. The series win is San Francisco’s first against LA since 2022.
“We’re resilient,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said. “After tough losses, we come out and do stuff like that. We’re in a tough position right now. Coming in here, we had to play well. To come back and respond like that to win a series, this was a good start to what is kind of a tough stretch right now.”
San Francisco loaded the bases in their first three at-bats. But they were only able to score a lone run on a sacrifice fly by Matt Chapman, sending home Jorge Soler who doubled to lead off the game.
“Everybody knows that his pitch is a fastball,” Soler said through his translator. “So, we were ready and expecting that fastball.”
The Giants added two more runs in the second inning on an RBI double by Soler, scoring David Villarreal who singled to lead off the inning, then a sacrifice fly by Austin Slater, scoring Tyler Fitzgerald who also singled in the inning.
By the third inning, they extended their lead to 4-0 on an RBI double by Villarreal, scoring Luis Matos, who reached third on an error by Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages with two outs, to push the Giants further into the lead.
The big blow in the fourth inning started with a single by Fitzgerald, followed by a walk to Soler to put two runners on. After Slater flew out to center, both Heliot Ramos and Patrick Bailey hit an RBI double and a two-RBI double, respectively, to extend the lead to 7-0. Then Chapman hit a two-run homer to left to put the cherry on top of the day and put the Giants up 9-0 in the fourth.
Bailey put the Giants in double digits in the run column with a ground-rule RBI double in the eighth inning, scoring Ramos who doubled to deep right in the previous at-bat.
LA managed to put up a few runs against the Giants bullpen late in the game.
The Dodgers scored top of the fifth on a solo home run by Chris Taylor, and off an RBI double to right by Taylor at the top of the seventh with one out. LA scored two more in the ninth inning off reliever Landen Roupp before Tyler Rogers shut the door, striking out Ohtani to end the game.
The offensive explosion saw the Giants hit a season-high 10 doubles and reach double-digits in scoring for the fourth time this season, most recently scoring 13 runs in a 13-6 win at the Los Angeles Angels two weeks ago on June 16.
“We just tried to hit low line drives because (Paxton) manages the top of the zone pretty well,” Melvin explained. “We tried to stay off that pitch up there and to do that, a lot of times, you want to try to stay on top of the ball. Some guys will pull more, some guys a little bit up the middle, so we had good at-bats across the board.”
Today was a big boost for Giants pitcher Spencer Bivens, who made his first start of the season on Sunday.
Bivens was masterful, going five innings, allowing just one run (Taylor’s home run) on four hits with three strikeouts, two of which came against Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani.
“We were only expecting him to go two or three (innings on the mound), four tops,” said Melvin. “To go five innings and strike out Ohtani to get the win is pretty special. I think everybody got goosebumps.”
As for Paxton, the nine runs and 12 hits he allowed were both career-highs and his worst since he allowed seven runs (six earned) on six hits back on June 5 at the Pirates.
The Giants are hoping they can build off the two series wins at home against the Cubs and Dodgers when they hit the road for a six-game road trip starting with the first of a three-game mid-week series against the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday.
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