PITTSBURGH — The Giants’ 7-5 win here Saturday afternoon, securing their first series win against the Pirates since 2017, was the definition of a team effort.
San Francisco scored in six different innings, had nine players contribute to the run column and even needed two relievers and a beaten-up backstop to escape a bases-loaded jam in the eighth. But by the time Camilo Doval recorded the 27th out, the Giants were winners of the seventh game in their past eight contests.
Their “line change” that often comes when an opposing starter leaves the game gave them the lead for good, though Pittsburgh threatened to spoil things in the eighth with a home run that made it a one-run game and later put the go-ahead run in scoring position.
Pinch-hitting for Austin Wynns in the sixth, Brandon Belt drew the first of four walks off Pittsburgh’s bullpen and scored the go-ahead run on a sac fly from Mike Yastrzemski, who was pinch-hitting for Austin Slater.
After the Pirates loaded the bases down one in the eighth against Dominic Leone, Jake McGee struck out Tyler Heineman on the 10th pitch of the at-bat to escape the inning. Catcher Curt Casali, who was already nursing a sore hamstring, took a foul ball off his hand but remained in the game as the only available backstop left once Wynns came out.
The only player in the starting lineup not to score or drive in a run was Evan Longoria, who walked three times and was stranded on third in seventh, after Luis González delivered a two-strike double that drove in Joc Pederson for what proved to be valuable insurance.
With two more solo shots — Wilmer Flores to left in the first, Austin Slater to center in the fifth — the Giants’ past 10 home runs have come without runners on base. They haven’t hit a multi-run homer since Flores’ two-run shot against the Rockies on June 7.
But the Giants were able to manufacture just enough runs in other ways Saturday to make up for the Pirates’ one big blast. Brandon Crawford singled home Thairo Estrada to tie the game at 4 in the sixth, and Darin Ruf drove in Casali to give them a 2-1 lead in the third. Crawford gave Doval room to breath in the ninth with an RBI double in the top of the ninth that extended the Giants’ lead to 7-5, after the Pirates pulled within one the previous inning.
The teams traded leads three times through the first three innings, but starter Alex Wood settled down after a three-run third and left with a 6-4 lead with one out in the sixth.
The Pirates’ five runs amounted to the most the Giants have given up in 10 games, since a 5-3 loss to the Rockies last Tuesday. They’ve won eight of their past 10 (including seven of eight) and took a 1.21 staff ERA over that stretch into Saturday’s game.
Wood was a strike away from possibly tossing a one-run gem.
But with one on and two outs in the third, Wood fired two quick strikes past designated hitter Michael Chavis. And then: foul, ball, ball, ball, ball. The next batter, Diego Castillo (who entered the game on a 3-for-40 streak and a batting average of .192), put a 2-2 sinker over the left-field wall that accounted for three of the Pirates’ five runs.
Daniel Vogelbach made it a one-run game with a solo blast to right against Leone to lead off the eighth, the first run allowed by Leone in 10 outings (9 1/3 IP), and Cal Mitchell threatened to tie it again with a deep ball into the gap with runners on first and second, but Yastrzemski, who took over for Slater in center, ran all the way from his shifted position in left-center to the opposite gap to track it down and preserve the Giants’ lead, before McGee got out of the inning.
The Giants had played six series against the Pirates since the last time they won one — their final meeting of 2017 — which had been their longest streak without a series win against any opponent in the majors. But against a team tied for the third-worst run differential in the majors (minus-103 entering Saturday), they will go for the sweep Sunday.
Bailey’s early exit
Pitching coach Andrew Bailey was tossed from the game by first-base umpire Jim Reynolds during the final at-bat of the fifth inning. Bailey wasn’t the only one on the Giants bench who was jawing with Reynolds, after he said Diego Castillo didn’t go around on a check swing. Reynolds made a few check-swing calls the Giants were unhappy with, including on the pivotal ball four to Chavis after Wood lost him.
Bailey’s ejection marks the second time a Giants coach has been tossed from a game, after Antoan Richardson was ejected in the fifth game of the season during his back-and-forth with the Padres bench and coach Mike Schildt.
