SEATTLE — If a reset was what the Giants were looking for, they couldn’t have asked for more than the way they began the second half Friday against the Mariners.
Jung Hoo Lee led a parade of a dozen hits, Bryce Eldridge and Willy Adames provided the power and Landen Roupp mowed through seven shutout innings for a convincing 7-0 win.
“It looked like we’ve been playing the last four days,” quipped Eldridge, who opened the scoring with a two-run shot in the fifth. “In all seriousness, I think the break was good for us.”
For the sixth time this season, San Francisco won its third game in a row.
Now, for the real test of whether or not this is just a mirage: Can they extend it to four for the first time all year?
It’s hard not to like their chances if they can repeat performances like Friday’s.
“We played really well tonight, but we only get one win for it,” manager Tony Vitello said. “Tomorrow is a new battle. … The challenge is on for the coaching staff, too, but for the players to bring the attitude they brought today, of a 66-game season, make it a fresh start.”
Logan Webb gets the ball Saturday, and Roupp gave him a good starting point with his second straight stellar showing.
He walked three and only struck out two but didn’t yield a hit until the fourth, surrendering only two all game. He traded swings and misses for a boatload of weak contact and some solid defense behind him.
After allowing only one run in eight innings in his last start before the break, Roupp lowered his ERA to 3.98 after it had climbed to a season-worst 4.55 two starts ago.
“I think if you look at his whole body of work, he’s been great for us all year long,” Vitello said. “It’s just been a couple outings where the pitch count gets high on him because he’s not in the zone. Ironically tonight, one more walk than strikeout … but the rest of the time was just pounding the zone.”
Now two innings shy of his previous career high (106 ⅔), the Giants skipped Roupp’s last turn through the rotation before the break. The 11-day layoff seems to have only helped.
“Yes and no,” Roupp said. “I felt a little sluggish today, just with so many days off in between. … I don’t really like to take breaks. It kind of just messes with my momentum.”
For once, it was the Giants who benefited from some sloppy play, with Seattle committing a pair of errors that led to Lee widening the Giants’ lead to 3-0 in the sixth.
Lee reached on a fielder’s choice after Heliot Ramos singled to lead off the inning, but made it to second when shortstop Colt Emerson threw into foul ground trying to turn two.
He then scored when second baseman Cole Young couldn’t handle a ground ball off the bat of Arraez.
Playing a key role in it all: Catcher Drew Cavanaugh, who reached base all three times he came to the plate and used his body to obstruct Young’s path to the grounder while going to second.
Lee (3-for-4), Cavanaugh (2-for-2), Ramos (2-for-5) and Casey Schmitt (2-for-5) all contributed multiple hits.
Maybe the most encouraging sign came from Adames, who blew the game wide open with San Francisco’s eighth grand slam of the year. The struggling shortstop had been 0-for-3 when he came up with the bases loaded in the seventh.
He lined an 0-1 slider over the wall in right-center, going with the pitch, to widen the lead to 7-0.
“It can’t just be Willy and [Matt Chapman] and [Rafael] Devers,” Eldridge said. “But when those guys are at their best, we’ve shown what the offense is capable of. This team’s unstoppable. … I even thought during batting practice, [Adames] looked good, he looked fresh.”
The marine layer had kept a couple of deep drives in the ballpark, with Schmitt and Seattle’s Luke Raley sending fly ball outs to the center field wall, but Eldridge’s power was the first to prove impervious. Eldridge caught a splitter on the outside corner off the end of his bat but still gave it enough oomph to sneak it over the wall — and out of the reach of leaping center fielder Victor Robles.
Eldridge’s ninth home run of the season produced the first runs for either team, opening a 2-0 lead in favor of the Giants in the top of the fifth. That, it turned out, would have been enough.
What it means
It’s now been more than a week since the Giants’ last loss, the longest they have gone all season without the number in the loss column going up.
Who’s hot
Of all the Giants, Vitello believed few needed the All-Star break more than Lee.
It’s one reason why the skipper framed it as a positive when he had to break the news to the third-year outfielder that his breakout first half didn’t merit his first career All-Star selection.
Lee looked freshly rested while rattling off a pair of line drive singles in his first two at-bats. His only piece of contact that wasn’t hard-hit was a broken-bat single for his third hit of the night. He reached base for a fourth time when he was hit by a pitch, loading the bases for Adames.
It was Lee’s 30th multihit effort of the season, trailing only Luis Arraez and Schmitt, but only his second since June 24. In 17 games before the break, Lee had been hitting .164 (10-for-61), with only one walk and three extra-base hits, resulting in a .404 OPS.
Who’s not
For a team looking for a fresh start in the second half, its biggest star didn’t get the message.
The only Giant kept off the bases in the 12-hit performance was Devers, who struck out three times while going 0-for-5. Devers went down swinging on three pitches in his first at-bat, then swung through another fastball at the letters for strike three his next time up.
Devers briefly raised his OPS over .800 for the first time all season in the Giants’ last series before the break, but the hitless performance sent it back down to .789.
Up next
Fresh off a restful few days representing the Giants at the All-Star Game in Philadelphia, Webb makes his first start of the second half against Seattle right-hander and Bay Area native Bryan Woo.
First pitch is scheduled for 5:08 p.m. PT, with Fox carrying the game nationally.
With 10 days since his last start, Webb will try to begin the second half on a better note than the way he went into the break, surrendering 12 runs over his final two starts.
