The Giants took gut checks even before Kyle Harrison threw the first pitch of their series with the Rockies.
In Wrigley Field, Cy Young candidate Zac Gallen led the Diamondbacks to a 1-0 win over the Cubs, pushing San Francisco from 2.5 to three games out of a wild card spot. Then Miami beat the Phillies, inching even closer to the dance than the Giants.
Shortly before gametime, San Francisco’s first and second hitters, Austin Slater and Thairo Estrada, got scratched from the starting lineup. The team listed dizziness as Slater’s ailment and pink eye as Estrada’s.
Then the series opener started, and the Giants fell behind early.
Rookie Kyle Harrison got into trouble in the second inning and got chased with a homer in the sixth. A listless Giants offense went scoreless for five innings.
But a majestic trio of consecutive homers erased Colorado’s 4-0 lead. The Giants had not only life, but a frenzied Oracle Park at their backs.
Immediately though, Elias Diaz tagged Taylor Rogers for a three-run homer for a harsh response.
Down 7-4 heading into the bottom of the seventh, with yet another hole to climb out of, in the first game of the most important stretch of September, is when the Giants really got their mettle checked.
“We’ve talked about the fighter’s mentality, and when you go down in a game several times — and we’ve had some of the challenges we’ve had over the past month — it’s pretty easy to pack it in in those games,” manager Gabe Kapler said postgame. “These guys are nothing else if not fighters.”
To end their six-game losing streak, the Giants (71-70) scratched, homered, singled, and walked their way to a comeback victory. They began a stretch of 10 games against the lowly Rockies and subpar Guardians with a 9-8, topsy-turvy win.
The go-ahead runs came on consecutive walks with the bases loaded in the eighth, after the Giants had summited two major deficits. Wilmer Flores — the life preserver every Giant has tried to cling to at one point or another — homered and walked in the go-ahead run in a 3-for-4 night.
“Great win, we needed that badly,” Harrison said postgame. “Shows we’ve got a lot of fight. We want to win, we want to make it to the playoffs. I think the lineup showed you guys that today, they showed us as the pitching staff. So we’re ready to go and fired up.”
The long night began with Harrison in his second start at Oracle Park. The prodigal lefty surrendered three runs in the second inning on some loud and some soft contact.
Harrison yielded a triple drilled to the center field wall and another hitter reached on an error off a batted ball with a 111 mph exit velocity. But the other two big plays in the inning were a squibbed flare single and a swinging bunt between home plate and the pitcher’s mound that neither Harrison nor Joey Bart could do much about.
That pitted the Giants behind as their offense — the worst in MLB since July 1 — continued to struggle. Luis Matos and Flores each reached to lead off two separate innings, but neither scored either time.
SF’s best early chance came in the third, when Matos doubled to left and Flores singled up the middle. Matos hesitated initially, then wheeled around third for home, but Rockies center fielder Nolan Jones cut him down with a sharp throw to the plate.
Given San Francisco’s feckless offense, taking the risk was fine in the moment, though Kapler said third base coach Mark Hallberg would probably like to have it back. It usually makes sense to put pressure on a defense, particularly with a runner as quick as Matos. Everything went right for the Rockies on the play, however.
Jones, who stole SF’s run, knocked Harrison out of the game with his solo home run to lead off the sixth. Jones crushed a middle-middle slider the other way for his 15th of the season, giving Colorado a 4-0 lead.
Harrison departed at 90 pitches, having struck out five and allowed three earned runs. In his four starts, the rookie has a 4.87 ERA while having given up six homers.
Even though Harrison’s fastball velocity was a tick down, and he did surrender the homer, he still pitched fine. He, like most Giants pitchers for the past two months, needed some run support.
Finally, that arrived.
Flores continued his tear by launching a two-run shot in the sixth inning, halving the Rockies’ lead. Right after him, Haniger — the embattled free agent signing — made it back-to-back. J.D. Davis, whose second-half slump has embodied SF’s scoring troubles, pointed his hand to the sky as he launched his no-doubter to cap a back-to-back-to-back barrage.
For the first time since 2016, the Giants hit three successive homers.
Only once since June had the Giants hit at least three homers in a game. They did so in three swings Friday night, knocking out Blach in the process.
Just as quickly as they erased Colorado’s deficit, the Giants created a new one for themselves as Rogers served up the three-run shot to Diaz. Rogers has struggled against righties all season, but needed to face his third batter. Diaz made him pay.
Facing a derailing loss, Blake Sabol cracked a two-run homer to answer Diaz’s. Mike Yastrzemski drove in a cramping Joc Pederson from second to tie it. Then rookie Rockies reliever Evan Justice walked in two runs with the bases loaded and two outs.
There’s a reason why the Rockies are in last place. But even with Camilo Doval still not at his sharpest in the ninth, the Giants managed to outlast them when they desperately needed to.
“I think we all believe in each other,” Kapler said. “We’ve had our backs against our wall at times, we had our backs against the wall at times in this game. I believe in them, so it’s not surprising.”
