The highlight of the game was a fielder’s choice. The Giants scored two runs on walks. They stretched their starting pitcher out over 100 pitches — the second straight night their starter went 100-plus — in a seven-run ballgame. Curt Casali led the Giants offense with three hits.
Tuesday night wasn’t the most conventional ballgame. No matter, the Giants (18-12) scored nine runs on 12 hits, coasting to an 9-2 victory. San Francisco has now counterbalanced its five-game losing streak with four straight wins and can sweep the upstart Rockies with another entry in the win column Wednesday afternoon.
Even before Alex Wood’s first pitch, the game had strange vibes.
About an hour before Tuesday’s game the Giants announced a partnership with WME Sports that will put advertisement patches on their jerseys starting next year, in the 2023 season.
Then for the ceremonial first pitch, London mayor Sadiq Khan threw a strike. Hardly any fans had showed up to Oracle Park to see it, though (a large contingent of traveling journalists from England did catch it and then enjoyed the game from the press box). Khan was in town as MLB and London announced a long-term agreement to play regular season games and other events across the pound.
The Giants scored on two walks, two infield singles and a line drive into right field that Charlie Blackmon muffed. They had runners on first and second with one out, but ran into an unfortunate out when Curt Casali was left in between first and second as infielder Garrett Hampson deflected a single.
It was an unconventional inning, but a three-run one nonetheless.
The strangeness continued. Luis González misplayed a routine ball in the left field corner, allowing the Rockies to cut San Francisco’s 3-0 lead to 3-1 on an unearned run. Colorado’s two hits that inning left its bats at 74.1 and 86.9 mph.
Wood wasn’t giving up hard contact. He was just a victim of some misfortune.
He got run support aplenty, though, as the Giants knocked COL starter Antonio Senzatela out of the game in the fourth inning with two runs. Brandon Belt’s double into Triples Alley that scored LaMonte Wade Jr. from first was Senzatela’s English Breakfast tea kettle boiling over.
When Khan, sitting with Giants owner Larry Baer, was shown on the big screen between innings, he got a modest reception. There were only 21,472 fans there to provide it.
With the bases loaded in the sixth, Colorado reliever Lucas Gilbreath walked in two consecutive runs. Again: not normal. Another run came in on a sacrifice fly. Try explaining all of that to Khan and the fans watching from London.
No matter how unconventional, it was effective for San Francisco.
In their five-game losing streak entering last weekend, the Giants were outscored 33 to 10. The offense flatlined, starters struggled to go deep into games, the bullpen was taxed.
But in the four games since, all SF victories against two winning teams, the Giants have won by an aggregate score of 34-17. And already securing at least a series win against these — not last year’s — Rockies deserves props.
