SAN FRANCISCO _ It took 56 home games before the San Fracisco Giants received a three-run home run at AT&T Park this season _ just one more token wedged into a jammed up and broken season.
But how could the home dugout not laugh and smile and pump pairs of excited fists as they watched pitcher Ty Blach round the bases Thursday night?
That's right. A starting pitcher ended their three-run homer outage, and he wasn't even named Madison Bumgarner. Blach hit a 416-foot shot to dead center that landed on the netting above the vegetable garden, and it was just one swing amid a fruitful night as the Giants beat the A's 11-2 to split their four-game interleague rivalry series.
Jarrett Parker played for the first time since fracturing his collarbone April 15 and sent doubles to the wall in each of his first two at-bats, Ryder Jones began to settle in as the new third baseman and No.2 hitter with a pair of hits _ giving him a career total of three _ and Brandon Belt hit his 18th home run to match a career high.
The Giants led 7-0 after two innings, and there is nothing that Blach does better than fill up the strike zone. He held the A's to two runs in eight innings to receive the victory.
Blach also supplied just the fourth three-run homer by a Giant all season when he went deep in the fifth. Brandon Crawford (at Colorado), Austin Slater (at Atlanta) and Hunter Pence (at Oakland) hit theirs on the road.
It was the first three-run homer hit by a Giants pitcher since Matt Cain went deep last season.
