SAN FRANCISCO — As Charlie Blackmon sent a high-arcing flyball toward McCovey Cove, the stomachs of 36,000 fans at Oracle Park began to turn.
A potential go-ahead home run in the ninth inning for the Colorado Rockies slugger threatened to push Colorado ahead and eventually end the San Francisco Giants’ five-game win streak, but after a replay review confirmed the call on the field that Blackmon’s ball was hit foul, fans had to wait a little bit longer for San Francisco to stretch that streak to six games.
A Blackmon single ultimately chased Giants closer Jake McGee from Friday’s game and pushed the tying run into scoring position, but right-hander Zack Littell entered with two outs in the ninth and struck out C.J. Cron to help Gabe Kapler’s club pick up a 5-4 victory.
With their latest tortuous win that featured a two-run, ninth-inning home run from 2019 Opening Day left fielder Connor Joe off McGee, the Giants maintained a 5-game lead over the Dodgers in the National League West and improved to 75-41.
Six months after Baseball Prospectus’ well-respected PECOTA projections pegged the Giants to finish 75-87, the club matched their forecasted win total with 46 games left to play this season. They did it Friday at Oracle Park behind a three-run first-inning home run from Wilmer Flores, three hits from Austin Slater and five innings from starter Anthony DeSclafani.
After winning five in a row on five different occasions this season, the Giants have finally posted a six-game win streak and are showing no signs of slowing down as the club is now 10-2 in August and 18-9 since the All-Star break.
Despite appearing in nearly all of the Giants’ games because he’s often used as a late-game defensive replacement, Slater only starts against left-handed pitchers and must make the most of his opportunities when the club faces a southpaw.
The center fielder wasted little time on Friday against Austin Gomber as he kicked off the Giants’ four-run first inning rally with a double into the right field corner. When the Giants added on with Darin Ruf’s two-out bloop single in the second, it was Slater who came around to score from second after he began the inning by lining an 0-2 changeup from Gomber high off the left field wall.
Slater added a third hit against Gomber with a 103.6-mile per hour single, but the most important hit of the night for the Giants belonged to Flores, who became the sixth different San Francisco hitter to reach the 15-home run threshold this season.
Flores’ three-run home run in the first inning marked the Giants’ 60th two-out homer of the season, which ranks third in the majors and is already the fourth-most for a Giants team in the last four decades.
DeSclafani returned from a 10-day stint on the injured list with right shoulder fatigue to toss five innings of two-run ball against a Rockies lineup that failed to score in Thursday’s series opener. The Giants starter entered Friday’s start with a 2.26 ERA in the 12 starts he’s made with at least one extra day of rest this season, but he wasn’t nearly as sharp with the additional layoff this time around as Colorado tagged him for five hits while also drawing two walks.
The key for DeSclafani on Friday was avoiding the home run, which has plagued him in his worst outings this season. After giving up a pair of two-run homers in his last outing in Arizona, the only hits DeSclafani surrendered against Colorado were singles.
