By Morris Phillips

When it’s 87 degrees at first pitch along McCovey Cove, you can bet the 25 guys in the third base dugout, manager and coaches are on alert: Giants’ hitters know to try to launch one, and Giants’ pitchers are well aware that they if they elevate, they could give up something cheap.

With the warm, still air conducive to offense, and from the perspective of the starting pitchers, Madison Bumgarner was able to slow it down just enough, while the Braves’ Julio Teheran couldn’t quite get his grip on the issue.

Both pitchers faced 22 batters, but Teheran had issues gripping the ball, walked five, got taken deep by Hunter Pence and only lasted 3 1/3 innings.  Bumgarner allowed seven hits and walked one, but he kept the ball in the park, and was the last guy standing when he left after five innings with a 5-4 lead.

“They got another lead and I was doing my dangdest to keep it for them,” Bumgarner said in his familiar drawl.

After that, three San Francisco relievers were near perfect, while the offense added on—two runs in the fifth, one run in the sixth and one in the eighth—in a 10-4 win over the Braves on Wednesday.

“They just kept coming.  One of those days were they just kept tacking on runs,” Braves’ infielder Chris Johnson said.

The Giants captured five of six from the Braves in the last two weeks, and the two playoff hopefuls are done seeing each other in 2014 unless it happens in the post-season.  That’s life in today’s MLB where each team plays an unwieldy 20 separate opponents.  One thing’s certain: the Giants will look at the stretch as a real positive going forward, while the Braves will undoubtedly see it as low point.

Through 39 games, Atlanta’s offense has produced a major-league second-to-worst 122 runs.  Three days in hot San Francisco was an improvement, just not a significant one. The Braves scored 11 runs, but just one in the first eight innings on Monday–mostly against a resurgent Tim Lincecum–and none in the final five frames Wednesday, when the Giants’ hot bullpen took hold. Atlanta hitters struck out a whopping 32 times in the series, and that undoubtedly led directly to frustrated B.J. Upton’s ejection by home plate umpire Lance Barrett in the sixth inning after the outfielder struck out for the third time.

Teheran’s issues with holding on to the baseball are simply hard to grasp. They led to five walks, with the Columbian-born pitcher saying that dry weather—not humid weather—in San Francisco and Los Angeles affects his grip.  Offensively, Jason Heyward (.205) and B.J. Upton (.212) have really struggled with the bats.  Half the Braves’ projected pitching staff have battled injuries, with Brandon Beachy and Kris Medlen to miss the entire season.  On top of all that, the Braves have won just five times in 15 games since April 29.

Meanwhile, the Giants have won 15 of 20 are starting to cook in a competitive NL West.  Their lead grew to 3 ½ games on Wednesday as the Rockies lost 3-2 in Kansas City with the Dodgers four back prior to their game Wednesday night against the Marlins.

The Giants 49 home runs (three—Pence, Brandon Crawford and Michael Morse—on Wednesday) in 41 games have been a revelation, but the revolving door of daily heroes may be the biggest factor.  Gregor Blanco jumped off the Giants’ bench and into a start in center field in place of an ailing Angel Pagan and got a hit, walked twice, and stole three bases and scored three times.  The three steals, three runs combo hadn’t been accomplished by a Giant since 1991 when Darren Lewis did it.

Reliever Jean Machi continued to heighten his profile as well by pitching two, scoreless innings, lowering his microscopic ERA to 0.44.

Bumgarner won for the fifth time in 2014, and the young lefty already six seasons into his big league career continued a positive trend.  After allowing a career-worst 23 home runs in 208 innings in 2012, the North Carolina native has thrown just 20 gopher balls in 254 innings since.  Bumgarner had given up at least one long ball in three of his four previous starts.

In that same stretch, Teheran has thrown 247 innings and allowed 30 home runs, a blemish on the outstanding start to the 23-year old pitcher’s career.  This was the shortest start of Teheran’s career and the five walks tied a career-high.

On Thursday at 7:15pm, the Giants welcome the Marlins for four games with Matt Cain—still looking for his first win in 2014—facing Miami’s Nathan Eovaldi.

NOTE: Giants’ third basemen Pablo Sandoval left the game in the sixth, hobbling on a sore toe on his left foot.  Manager Bruce Bochy said he didn’t think Sandoval would miss any time all but penciling him in to Thursday’s starting lineup.