San Francisco Giants’ LaMonte Wade Jr., right, is congratulated by teammate J.D. Davis, left, after hitting a home run against the Baltimore Orioles during the first inning at Oracle Park in San Francisco on Fri Jun 2, 2023 (AP News photo)

By Troy Ewers

SAN FRANCISCO–In front of a crowd of 27,873 in Oracle Park on a beautiful 59 degree night, it was the Baltimore Orioles against the San Francisco Giants in their first meeting since 2019 and it was a duel between Logan Webb and Dean Kremer.

The Orioles came into this game with the third best record in the league (35-21) and it showed with good pitching to keep the Giants off balance and the O’s hitting to just get by 3-2 on Friday night to open a three game series.

The game started with Webb going three up three down in the 1st and the energy seemed like it was all Giants when LaMonte Wade Jr. hit a solo leadoff home run and not just any home run, the 100th “Splash Hit” here at Oracle Park.

The second inning was the Orioles time to shine when Austin Hays scored from a Ryan O’Hearn single, then Aaron Hicks scored off a short roller single by Jorge Mateo and the second inning ended with The O’s up 2-1.

In the third inning Mike Yastrzemski hit a double that scored J.D. Davis and evened out the score, 2-2. Between the fourth inning and the seventh inning, each pitcher had quick innings and no one had the upper hand it felt like.

The game changer was from Gunnar Henderson hitting a leadoff home run in the top of the seventh and now the Giants were gonna have to fight back. In the eighth inning no energy from the Giants’ bats , but in the ninth inning SF had to try to score on one of the top closers in the business, going for his 15th save of the season, Felix Bautista.

Bautista struck out the first two batters, then Casey Schmitt shot some adrenaline in the building with a double, but Bautista would still get his save when he struck out Michael Conforto to end the game and the Orioles came away with a one run win. This is the 15th save for Bautista, making him the second best closer in the MLB.

Next game is Saturday night at 7:05pm PT and it will be Kyle Brandish (2-1, 3.89) on the hill for the Orioles and Alex Cobb (4-2, 3.05) for the Giants at Oracle Park.