By Jeremy Harness

SAN FRANCISCO – Although nice to see, the events of Wednesday night did not do nearly enough to affect the bottom line.

In almost the same manner that the rain that covered the entire Bay Area did not put a dent in the staggering state-wide drought, the Giants’ victory over the Cincinnati Reds did not move them much closer to a playoff spot come October.

The Dodgers also won Wednesday night, and the Giants remained 7 ½ games behind them in the National League West, and they are also 6 ½ games back of the Chicago Cubs for the second wild-card spot.

Nonetheless, starter Jake Peavy had himself a brilliant night at the plate as well as on the mound. He went six-plus innings and gave up only a pair of runs on seven hits while walking only one batter while striking out eight, as the Giants continued to keep their slim chances of a postseason berth alive with a 5-3 win over the Reds before 41,383 soaked fans at AT&T Park.

Peavy shut out the Reds for the first five innings before surrendering a run in the sixth, after which manager Bruce Bochy went to visit the mound to check on him. He finished that inning with no further damage and convinced Bochy to let him start the seventh.

However, he was promptly greeted by back-to-back doubles to start the inning, forcing the skipper to take the gritty right-hander out. Corey Gearrin and Javier Lopez were able to retire the next three batters in order to shut the threat down and pave the way for Peavy’s seventh win of the year.

“He threw the ball very well,” Bochy said. “He was hitting his spots. He’s going to give you everything he’s got; he’s going to leave it all out on the field. That’s why I have so much confidence in him. He’s not going to beat himself.

“What a great job he did.”

He also helped himself out with the bat, as he belted only the third home run of his career, a solo shot off Reds reliever Collin Balester in the fourth inning that also marked his first homer in more than eight years.

“I think we need to work on his (home-run) jog,” Bochy joked. “He was sprinting around there pretty good.”

He got some major help at the plate from Marlon Byrd, whom the Giants picked up four weeks ago from these very same Reds in order the soften the blow that was struck when the injury bug continued to tag Hunter Pence.

Now, Byrd is not going to make Giants fans forget about Pence by any means, but he is doing quite an admirable job in his absence nonetheless. The right fielder, who has been handy with the bat for most of his career, hit the ball hard off Reds pitching with a double and a triple in his first two at-bats of the game while driving in a run and scoring another.

He hit another screaming line drive deep to right field in the fifth inning, and it took a great running catch by Jay Bruce to prevent another extra-base hit.

The Giants tallied a run in each of the first two innings to give Peavy and early cushion, and that led to a quite-eventful third inning.

Known primarily for his offense, which was clearly on full display Wednesday, Byrd made a very nice sliding catch to take a hit away from Skip Schumaker to start things off. Unfortunately for the Giants, the carryover effect wasn’t very good at all. Two batters later, Angel Pagan charged a two-out line drive from Jason Bourgeois and made a dive for it, but the center fielder whiffed as the ball skipped all the way to the wall and allowed Bourgeois to roll into third.

Peavy, however, quickly nullified the mistake by striking out Bruce to end the inning.

Byrd wasn’t finished. After Brandon Belt led off the bottom half of the third with a single, he bounced one off the wall in the deepest part of right-center to bring Belt in and extend the Giants’ lead to 3-0.