San Francisco Giants’ Rafael Devers, middle, celebrates after hitting a three-run home run that also scored Andrew Knizner (21) and Heliot Ramos (17) during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs in San Francisco, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025 (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
By Lincoln Juarez
SAN FRANCISCO – Rafael Devers went 4-for-4 with two home runs to lead the Giants offensive eruption. Matt Chapman blasted his 200th career home run en route to a 12-3 win over the Cubs.
Game two between the Giants and Cubs featured a lot of big swings and early scoring.
In the bottom of the first, Rafael Devers launched a ball over the center field wall for his 26th home run of the season and first of the night, putting the Giants ahead 1-0. The first hit of his 4-for-4 night set the tone for the rest of the Giants offense to add to the explosion.
It was the southpaw, Carson Whisenhunt on the mound for the Giants who really only made one bad pitch in his five innings of work. It was a 92mph middle-in sinker to Cubs second baseman, Nico Hoerner that ended up in the left field bleachers in the second inning. Pete Crow-Armstrong and Dansby Swanson scored on what wound up being the Cubs only offense of the night.
Cubs starter Colin Rea entered Wednesday’s game with a 10-5 record and 3.96 era and got knocked around by the Giants bats. They went right after him, hitting everything he threw all over the yard.
En route to their fourth straight win, the Giants have accumulated some luck and that showed in the fifth inning. In the visiting half Carson Whisenhunt escaped a bases loaded jam on a spectacular 1-6-4-3 inning-ending double play. A hard-hit ball up the middle deflected off Whisenhunt’s glove in an attempt to field it. “My first instinct was to go for the ball”, said Whisenhunt. He slowed it down just enough for a lunging Willy Adames to corral it and send a back-handed, bare-handed flip to second baseman Casey Schmitt covering the bag. Miraculously, Schmitt still had plenty of time to gun Justin Turner at first to escape without damage.
Bob Melvin attributed the double play to Willy Adames’ defense of late, saying “Willy’s been playing great defense here for an extended string and he’s been right in the middle of everything…it’s not a surprise the way he’s playing defensively right now”.
With runners on the corners in the home half of the fifth Matt Chapman dunked a base hit into right field scoring Devers from third. Cubs right fielder, Kyle Tucker fired a throw right off the helmet of Chapman, standing on first base, bouncing all the way to the backstop and allowing Dom Smith to come all the way around from first and score the Giants sixth run of the game.
“The one off the helmet, yeah I can’t remember the last time I saw something like that”, Melvin said as he acknowledged the bounces the Giants have been getting in their favor lately.
Casey Schmitt knocked Chapman in to cap off a three-run fifth inning. The Giants went on to score three more in the sixth, on Devers’ second home run of the game, one run in the seventh on Matt Chapman’s 200th career home run, and one in the eighth on a Heliot Ramos homer off Cubs catcher Reese McGuire who went into pitch.
Putting up a run in all but two innings in which they hit, the Giants offense totaled 12 runs on 13 hits while knocking around another quality Cubs starter. Homering for the tenth straight game as well, the offense has finally come back to life with Devers, Ramos, and Chapman leading the way.
Winners of four straight now, the Giants look to their ace to complete the series sweep Thursday afternoon at Oracle Park.
LHP Shota Imanaga (8-6, 3.03) for Chicago vs. RHP Logan Webb (12-9, 3.13) for San Francisco will match up in the series finale. First pitch at 12:45pm on the corner of 3rd and King.
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