Tag: Lamonte Wade Jr.

Webb, Wade help give Giants their biggest NL West lead of the season in a 7-0 romp over the Rockies

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By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–German Marquez may be on pace for his most wins in his six major league seasons along with his first All-Star Game appearance last month, but he can’t beat the Giants.

Marquez is 0-4 against the Giants this year with a 13.82 ERA, and last night’s 7-0 drubbing at Oracle Park may have been his worst outing yet against the G-Men. Against everyone, Marquez is 10-9 with a 3.77 ERA.

“I continue to make my pitches and continue to work, but I’m really not sure,” Marquez answered when asked about his struggles against San Francisco.

 “He was really focused tonight to turn the tide on these guys,” manager Bud Black said of German. “It’s just that he didn’t make any pitches.”

In his career, German is 4-9 against the Giants with an ERA of 7.19. But in his six years in Denver, he’s never seen a Giants’ team this good. Or a Giants’ team that treats him this bad. On Thursday, German expended 81 pitches to get through four innings, capped off by a six-run outburst in which everything the Giants hit was hit hard. Lamonte Wade Jr. typified the inning with a 430-foot bomb above Triples Alley where home runs rarely land. In fact, experienced Giants’ hitters know not to elevate pitches in that area of the ballpark because they usually result in frustrating outs.

But the fourth inning on Thursday was its own animal for Marquez. After Brandon Belt was retired, Brandon Crawford, Mike Yastrzemski and Curt Casali reached on hard-hit balls. Alex Dickerson was intentionally walked to get to pitcher Logan Webb, but Webb disrupted that strategy with a two-run single that traveled 399 feet and almost got out. Wade followed with his blast that had him looking like Barry Bonds with the poor location of the pitch and his classic swing follow through. Wade’s ball left the yard at 107 mph.

I joke around saying I’m gonna hit a home run and I almost did,” Webb said afterwards.

Webb was just as impressive with his pitching performance in which he went six innings, allowing three hits and striking out eight. Webb has become the Giants’ best pitcher of late by stringing together four, consecutive quality starts while the other starters have had their post All-Star break struggles. Webb is 4-0 at Oracle Park and his strikeout totals (17 combined) in his last two outings are eye-opening.

“Ever since he came off the IL, he’s been an absolute gem on the mound and a bulldog,” Curt Casali said of Webb.

The Giants increased their lead in the NL West to five games with the win, the first time they’ve held a lead that large this season. They’ve won five straight and 10 of 12 to improve their major-league best mark to 74-41. The Giants haven’t had a won-loss record this good after 115 games since 1993 when Dusty Baker’s first year as manager saw them open 77-38.

On Friday, the Giants turn to Anthony DeSclafani in a matchup with Austin Gomber. DeSclafani hasn’t won any of his last four starts since beating the Washington Nationals on July 10.

Homers in Bunches: Giants slug their way to 8-6 win over the Astros

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By Morris Phillips

SAN FRANCISCO–Could the power outage in the Giants’ clubhouse at Oracle Park continue for a fifth straight day?

No, and neither could Zach Greinke’s magical touch at Oracle Park.

Greinke has never lost a game at Oracle Park, posting a microscopic ERA in the process, and barely being tested in the majority of his six wins. But these days, the Giants have a brand new approach, and Greinke found out first hand that things might be different going forward. And when was Greinke notified of the change? Probably three home runs into the four homer barrage the Giants hit him with, all in the game’s first five innings.

“Three of them might have been home runs still in any situation,” Greinke said of his start, the first time he’d allowed four home runs to the Giants, and the first time he’d allowed any club that many homers since 2019. “They weren’t cheap.”

In 53 innings pitched at Oracle Park, the 218-game winner described as a future Hall of Famer in the Astros’ media notes, had never allowed a home run. In fact, his dominance was the essence of velvet: Greinke averaged little more than six strikeouts in his previous eight starts along McCovey Cove, showing that he was content to let the Giants get themselves out without needing to display a dominant stance.

What’s new is the Giants are swinging harder. Among the few quality home run hitting teams not to feature one, standout slugger, the team’s across-the-board approach is to look for pitches to launch, swing hard, and don’t get discouraged by strikeouts or meager batting averages. Against Greinke, who’s not only unlikely to allow a big fly, but also stingy with teams trying to string together base hits, the approach works. Maybe not everytime, but during a day game in a park where the park needs ideal conditions to surrender big hits, it worked on Saturday.

“We put some really good swings on the ball. All the homers were pretty much no-doubters,” Ruf said. “Although it was a nice day to hit and the ball seemed to be traveling well, those would have been homers in any other day game.”

The Giants’ homer drought–none over the first four games of the homestand–ended with a bang. The four, consecutive games without at least one home run was a first in manager Gabe Kapler’s run of 164 games at the helm.

The Astros, considered MLB’s top-rated offensive club, attempted to keep up the pace. They homered three times, two of those from Aledmys Diaz, and during a stretch of nine half-innings in which runs were scored in eight of them, the teams went back-and-forth, wiping out any leads that one of clubs established. But that pattern broke in the sixth when Brandon Crawford singled home a run with two runners aboard to give the Giants a 7-6 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The only run on the afternoon the Giants would produce without hitting a home run was the difference, and it came after Greinke departed, allowing him to escape with his undefeated record in San Francisco in tact.

Alex Wood, described as the Giants’ stopper with his excellent record in games following a Giants’ loss, was anything but, allowing six hits–two of them home runs–in his abbreviated 68-pitch outing. But often, it’s better to be lucky than good, and Wood benefitted from the Giants’ offensive breakout, and a bullpen effort that saw four relievers following him and allow just one, meaningless base hit. Jake McGee capped that effort with a perfect ninth to earn his 22nd save.

Ironically, the Giants played without newly acquired Kris Bryant from the Cubs, who was flying to San Francisco during the game Saturday. Bryant will be in uniform on Sunday, and will assume a lofty position in a lineup where he will lead the Giants in hits (87), be tied for the lead in home runs (18), and second in doubles (19). To say the Giants lineup will be not only loaded, but versatile, would be understatement. But the objective is to do it on the field, and not on paper, over the season’s final 59 games.

In a final move before the trade deadline the Giants reacquired Tony Watson from the Angels with Sam Selman the key piece headed to Anaheim. Watson has a recent, string of exemplary outings but he also moves into a crowded situation in the Giants’ bullpen. Currently, the Giants have relievers Dominic Leone, Jack McGee, Tyler Rogers, Jarlin Garcia and Jose Alvarez with ERA’s under 3.00. Reliable arms Caleb Baragar and Reyes Moronta could also be the mix as well at some point if they recover from injury.

On Sunday, the Giants have Logan Webb starting in a matchup with Houston’s Luis Garica at 1:05pm.