© Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports
The Giants had hit the ball hard all day long, though the score did not reflect it. Desperate for a win, a run, anything, amid a six-game losing streak, they entered the sixth inning tied with the Pittsburgh Pirates 0-0.
Finally, things fell their way.
In the top of the sixth inning, Gorkys Hernandez hit a solo homer that barely escaped the left field fence. Three batters later, Brandon Crawford doubled, scoring Brandon Belt, to extend San Francisco’s lead to 2-0. Before catcher Nick Hundley approached the plate, the Pirates made a pitching change, summoning reliever Richard Rodriguez in a righty-on-righty matchup. Advantage: Giants. On the first pitch of the at-bat, a sweeping curveball hanging in the zone, Hundley connected for a three-run homer that flew into the left field seats.
That was the ballgame. Giants, 5, Pirates, 0.
One half-inning of scoring halted a brutal losing streak in which opponents outscored the Giants 49-15. They had only held opponents under six runs once during the skid, in a 4-2 loss at Philadelphia.
Starting pitcher Derek Holland produced his best outing of his early Giants tenure, allowing only four hits and fanning seven batters in 6.1 innings of scoreless ball. Holland, a Chicago White Sox transplant in his first season with San Francisco, entered Sunday with a 1-4 record and 5.66 ERA. He had allowed at least three runs in all but one start. On Sunday, he allowed baserunners in every inning, but managed to escape trouble.
Sunday’s 5-0 win was San Francisco’s first shutout win since the second game of the year, a 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on March 30.
Meanwhile, the Giants offense hit the ball hard throughout the opening five innings, with little to show for it. Prior to Hernandez’s solo homer, the Giants hit into seven outs in which their batters produced exit velocities of at least 101 MPH. Andrew McCutchen connected on balls that went 108.9, 101.3, and 101.9 MPH off his bat. None of them resulted in hits.
Sometimes, that’s the way it goes, but it stings more when you are desperate for a win. That’s why San Francisco’s fifth-running was liberating for a team that has experienced drastic highs and lows at the plate throughout the first quarter of the season.
Fewer than two weeks ago, the Giants posted 29 runs in three games, all of which resulted in wins. Fast forward a few days, and their bats went missing, scoring a combined five runs in three games, all of which resulted in losses, at the onset of their six-game losing streak.
Which Giants lineup will we continue to see?
On Sunday, the Giants, now 20-21 on the season, rediscovered their bats in a brief, quick-hitting fifth-inning barrage.