Sam Hustis/KNBR
On a night that signaled San Francisco is back, the pandemic increasingly in the rearview mirror of a city that is more than 80 percent vaccinated, the Giants threw a party to usher in a new era.
Perhaps the team that won three World Series in five years is back, too.
The best-in-baseball Giants looked the part facing an A’s team that entered play with the second best record in the American League, shutting down Oakland, 2-0, in front of a rocking Oracle Park crowd that did not have distance restrictions for the first time since 2019.
In front of a loud, if not sell-out, 36,928, about double the previous high of 18,265, the Giants (49-26) won with a few big hits and both starting and relief pitching that called back to the early 2010s teams that rode that formula to a whole lot of success. They now are five games up on the Dodgers and Padres before either NL West foe had finished play Friday. The Giants have won nine of 10 and have shown no sign of slowing.
Johnny Cueto seems to look better the more eyes that are laid upon him, and Friday night was no different. He dazzled through seven innings and kept Oakland’s powerful offense off-balance throughout, a few fist-pumps and entertaining sticky-substance checks mixed in along the way.
Once he left, it was Tyler Rogers who went through the heart of the A’s, only Ramon Laureano reaching on an infield flare that was stuck 49.1 mph off the bat. Rogers struck out both Matt Chapman and Sean Murphy and lowered his ERA to 1.43, quietly making an All-Star Game case.
Jake McGee earned his 15th save on a night the Giants’ pitching limited Oakland to just six hits.
We back, baby pic.twitter.com/zc5IKL8BNB
— KNBR (@KNBR) June 26, 2021
The Giants did not get much offense but did not need much, either. Brandon Crawford’s looper in the fourth inning drove in Wilmer Flores, who raced from second even with a hamstring that clearly is still bothering him, for the game’s first run. It was Crawford’s 50th RBI, tied for third in the NL.
They added another in the seventh, when Curt Casali — only playing because Buster Posey was scratched with lower back tightness — stepped into a Cam Bedrosian fastball and sent it 378 feet over the left-field wall, just past his former Vanderbilt teammate Tony Kemp. Casali’s average has risen by 74 points in six games, and the calls for Joey Bart or Chadwick Tromp have quieted. Casali’s blast was the Giants’ 112th, the most in the majors.
Cueto, meanwhile, provided both solid pitching and plenty of moments that livened up a crowd that wanted to explode. He finished with seven scoreless innings while allowing five hits and a walk, and he was either dealing or fighting his way out of jams, both of which pumped up the volume in San Francisco.
He retired the first eight A’s he saw before Manaea — who recorded two of Oakland’s hits — reached on a double. The A’s loaded the bases, but Cueto got Matt Olson to fly out and walked off the mound triumphant in a place that had not been that loud since Bruce Bochy’s farewell.
He then had to be checked by umpires — he threw up his hands briefly as if he were being arrested — but came out of the sticky-substance pat-down without issue and with a smile.
Cueto got into another jam in the fifth, but he put down both Matts with strikeouts, two of his six on the night. The second, to Matt Olson, finished with a dramatic fist pump, Cueto so much more animated when he has a crowd behind him.
The crowd is back, and perhaps so are the great Giants teams that have revved up San Francisco crowds so many times before.