SAN FRANCISCO _ In a season in which his starting staff has been decimated by injuries and his bullpen taxed on a daily basis, San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy hasn't played much poker.
The cards have rarely been in his favor and the skipper often has to fold his hand ahead of schedule. So when an opportunity arose to go all in on Monday, Bochy took it.
He pushed in his chips, relied on the strength of his numbers and watched his club clobber the Arizona Diamondbacks, 10-3.
With the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the fourth, Bochy called on pinch hitter Alen Hanson to bat for starting pitcher Derek Holland. It's a gamble Bochy couldn't have taken without a well-rested bullpen, and it was a roll of the dice that appeared destined to fail when Hanson fell behind 0-2.
But after Hanson fouled off three straight curveballs, he rewarded Bochy's confidence by poking a two-run double down the left field line that helped the Giants break a 2-2 tie.
Shortly after Andrew McCutchen and Brandon Crawford led off the inning with back-to-back home runs, a single by Pablo Sandoval and walks by Hunter Pence and Gorkys Hernandez loaded the bases with Holland due to bat.
Though the left-hander had only surrendered two runs and four hits over four innings of work, Bochy had the benefit of a fresh, effective group of relievers lined up for the late innings. The skipper sent Hanson to the plate and the Giants never looked back.
After a wild pitch allowed Hernandez to score, catcher Buster Posey launched a two-run double into right center field to break open the game and push the Giants ahead 7-2.
With a win over the first-place Diamondbacks Monday, the Giants closed the gap in the National League West to 1.5 games and extended their season-best win streak to five games. It's the club's longest such streak since the Giants won six in a row from June 26-July 2, 2017.
While Bochy's offense has risen to the occasion since returning home from a 2-6 road trip, the success of the Giants' starting staff over the last three games allowed the skipper to manage in aggressive fashion.
San Francisco opened a six-game homestand by sweeping Philadelphia on the strength of three straight quality starts from Chris Stratton and rookies Andrew Suarez and Dereck Rodriguez. The trio combined to allow one run over 19 innings against the Phillies, forcing relievers to throw just eight innings over three days.
Though Holland needed 82 pitches to last four innings Monday, Bochy turned to Reyes Moronta who logged a shutdown inning in the fifth before calling on fellow rookie Pierce Johnson to pitch the sixth and seventh.
The home runs that opened the scoring for the Giants in the fourth helped the club erase the two-run lead the D'Backs took in the top half of the inning on a two-run, two-out double by Ketel Marte.
McCutchen's blast to left field to lead off the inning was his second in as many days after he went the entire month of May without a home run. Crawford's seventh home run of the season came on a night where he reached base in all four plate appearances and raised his average to .320, a National League-leading mark among shortstops.
After falling to 25-30 in Colorado last week, the Giants have reeled off five straight wins ahead of the return of ace Madison Bumgarner. The left-hander is scheduled to make his 2018 debut Tuesday after missing the first two-plus months of the regular season with a fractured pinky.
Bumgarner is expected to be available for about 90 pitches against Arizona and could help the Giants move above .500 for the first time since the club was 22-21 on May 15.
Following a seven-run fourth inning for the Giants, first baseman Pablo Sandoval crushed his third home run of the season into the right field arcade, extending the lead to 8-2. Sandoval's solo shot came on the first night of the 2018 MLB Draft, which is ironic considering it was his walkoff home run on the final day of the 2017 regular season that prevented the Giants from securing the first overall pick.
Starting in place of first baseman Brandon Belt, who is sidelined for the next three weeks after undergoing an emergency appendectomy, Sandoval pounded out three hits including a seventh-inning single that produced his first RBI as a right-handed hitter this season.
Pinch hitter Nick Hundley capped off a four-home run night for the Giants with a pinch hit solo home run in the ninth inning, his first pinch hit homer since September 4, 2010.
