SAN FRANCISCO – Maybe the Giants really can leave last month’s hitting woes in the rearview mirror.
Brandon Crawford and Lamonte Wade Jr. hit home runs in the sixth and seventh innings, respectively, as the Giants overcame a three-run deficit to earn a 4-3 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday before an announced crowd of 25,806 at Oracle Park.
Down 3-0 in the bottom of the sixth inning, Luis Matos doubled to right-center off Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen to score Blake Sabol from first base and cut Arizona’s lead to two. Crawford followed that with a two-run homer, as he crushed a 93 mph fastball from Gallen over the center field wall to tie the game 3-3. It was Crawford’s first homer since July 7 and just his second since the start of May.
Wade then hit a 96 mph sinker from Diamondbacks reliever Miguel Castro over the right field wall for a 4-3 Giants lead.
Ryan Walker, taking over for starter Alex Cobb, threw 2 1/3 scoreless innings before he gave way to Sean Manaea with one out in the ninth. With Geraldo Perdamo at first, Manaea retired Corbin Carroll before catcher Patrick Bailey snapped a throw over to first back to get Perdamo and end the game.
Bailey also threw out Jace Peterson as he attempted to steal second base in the eighth inning. The Giants have now won five of seven games on this homestand, which continues with games against Arizona on Wednesday and Thursday.
The result marked just the third time in their last 13 games that the Giants had scored at least four runs in a game, as they maintained a half-game lead over Philadelphia for the National League’s top wild-card spot and remained 2.5 games behind the Dodgers for first place in the NL West.
The Giants went 12-13 in July with a .209 batting average and a .632 OPS that resulted in an average of just 3.32 runs per game, the worst in MLB. San Francisco’s .632 OPS last month was its lowest in a full single month since September 2019 when they posted a .602 OPS as a team.
Fair to say the Giants’ players and front office do not expect those paltry numbers to become the norm. Both Farhan Zaidi, president of baseball operations, and manager Gabe Kapler both said before Tuesday’s game – and about two hours after the trade deadline came and went – that their group can turn it around at the plate.
“We have the same group of guys we had the first three months of the season, so I think we’ll get we’ll get going here a little bit,” Zaidi said. “Obviously, we haven’t had our ‘A’ lineup out there very often this year. That’s been challenging, but we just have to make the best of what we have.”
Cobb had an uneven outing as he allowed a solo home run to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in the fifth inning and solo shots to both Alek Thomas and Ketel Marte in the sixth. Per the Giants, it was the first time Cobb had allowed three home runs in a game since Sept. 11, 2020, when he took the loss against the New York Yankees in the Bronx as a member of the Baltimore Orioles.
There was a question as to whether Cobb would start Tuesday. He was too sick to start Monday and remained under the weather Tuesday afternoon, so much so that Kapler didn’t know for sure two hours before the game whether Cobb could go.