© David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports
Well that was awfully easy. At least, the Giants made it look that way, routing the Reds and sweeping them in four games with a 19-4 win on Thursday. That tally is the most in the majors this season, and improves San Francisco to a league-best 28-16. They are good.
In a matchup with previously not-fun-to-face Trevor Mahle, who had come into Thursday’s matinee with a 2.93 ERA (and a combined 2.19 ERA in his two prior starts), San Francisco made like All Star(s). The hits started coming and the they didn’t stop coming.
It started awfully early, with a first-inning, two-out single from Evan Longoria driving in a just-doubled Darin Ruf. Johnny Cueto got out of trouble in the latter half of the inning, notching a double play ball and a strikeout with a runner on third, and picked off the lone baserunner he allowed in the second. And from that point, it was open season.
For an idea of how quickly things devolved for Mahle and the Reds, Ruf, whose first-inning double opened the floodgates, was a triple shy of the cycle by the third inning. He was later robbed of the cycle from a not-fleet-of-foot Curt Casali and fortuitous Reds bounce.
It was that third inning that put an end to this one before it seemed like it was getting started. Mike Yastrzemski walked for what would be the first of three for him, and then Ruf began the hit parade with a single. So did Brandon Crawford. Then Mahle walked Evan Longoria with the bases loaded.
And then the barrage continued. A pair of singles from Alex Dickerson and Mauricio Dubon (who took advantage of the same high fastball he had just missed a couple swings earlier) made it 4-0 and put an end to Mahle’s very brief afternoon.
Michael Feliz came on in relief, only to allow a dagger, 427-foot, dead-center, career-first grand slam to Steven Duggar. If not for a row of plexiglass in that part of the Great American Ball Park, it seemed likely it would have crossed the 450-foot threshold. It was an 8-0 deficit that would grow imminently.
After a pair of eight-nine order strikeouts, Yastrzemski walked for the second time, and Ruf parked an opposite-field home run for his sixth of the season, sending the Giants into double digits. It’s the *third* time this season the Giants have scored nine runs in an inning.
The Reds added an inconsequential run in the fifth, but the Giants continued to pile on in the latter innings, too. It did not stop for the Giants, as Cincinnati watched on helplessly.
The top of the fifth was more brutality. Duggar walked, Curt Casali took a brutal ball to the elbow, and Yastrzemski walked for the third time. After Duggar scored on a passed ball, Brandon Crawford got in on the action.
Crawford shot his 11th homer of the season in the fifth, which ties him for seventh-most in the majors, third-most in the National League, and the most among shortstops… at age 34. It put the Giants up 14-0.
There was another four-run inning to be had, though, in the seventh, when Casali opened the inning by… taking another ball off the elbow. This one, though, skirted off an elbow pad he was not wearing in his prior at-bat. It seems likely that elbow protection might remain.
The 32-year-old backup catcher proved to be something of a nuisance from his veteran compadre, Ruf, who it can be argued was robbed by Casali of the cycle. Ruf approached the plate needing the ever-elusive triple, and hit the perfect ball to try and do so; a liner into the right-field corner. Thanks to Casali and his lack of speed, plus a fortuitous bounce to the Reds’ right fielder, it only became his second double and fourth hit of the day.
Crawford followed suit by driving home both. And it was Evan Longoria’s ensuing two-run home run, for the Giants’ 18th run of the day, that set a new MLB single-game high for runs scored. Some poor relieving allowed the Reds to tally some consolation runs late, but it was all Giants, all day, and they got another insult-to-injury run late, off an error.
