SF Giants ride bats, Birdsong to second straight win over Orioles
Apparently all the San Francisco Giants needed to do to wake up their dormant offense was put a continent between them and Oracle Park.
The Giants rode their bats to a second straight win over the Baltimore Orioles, 5-3, and will go for the sweep Thursday afternoon with Logan Webb on the mound.
They got a pair of home runs, including one to lead off the game for the second night in a row from Mike Yastrzemski, who has homered in three of his five games at Camden Yards. Michael Conforto widened the Giants’ advantage in the sixth inning with his 17th homer of the season — and third hit of the game.
A two-RBI single from Casey Schmitt and a swinging bunt from Grant McCray that resulted in a run when the Orioles’ catcher didn’t touch the plate for a force out was all the other offense needed to win for the first time in eight starts behind Hayden Birdsong, who limited Baltimore to three runs on four hits over 5⅔ innings.
With his 17th homer of the season, Yastrzemski became the fourth player in franchise history to lead off consecutive games with home runs — the first Giants leadoff hitter to do it since Dan Gladden on Oct. 1-2, 1985. It was also Yastrzemski’s sixth homer of September, all coming in back-to-back bunches.
“Yaz set the tone in the first inning, jumping on heaters, putting pitchers on their heals a little bit,” Conforto said on the NBC Sports Bay Area broadcast. “That’s something we talked about. Obviously we’ve had some trouble getting on starters. Yaz being in that leadoff spot has been huge for us.”
The Giants improved to 46-24 when scoring first and 30-12 when hitting multiple home runs, however neither has been a common occurrence. Only the Angels, Pirates and White Sox have scored fewer runs in the first three innings this season.
They were shut out the final three games of their most recent homestand, going 1-5, but have scored 15 runs on 19 hits while going 7-for-15 with runners in scoring position over their first two games in Baltimore.
In both games, Yastrzemski gave them a lead before their starter took the mound and they didn’t take their foot off the gas. After falling behind 2-1, the Giants loaded the bases in the fourth and manufactured three runs to retake the lead for good.
Filling in for Matt Chapman, who was placed on the paternity list before the game, Schmitt lined home two runs in the fourth and did best best impersonation of the four-time Gold Glove winner at third base. He ended the second inning with a backhanded spinning stab and sidearm throw, and then ranged behind the bag to prevent a second run from scoring after Ryan O’Hearn cut the Giants’ lead to 5-3 in the sixth.
“He was all over the place out there,” Conforto said. “Saved a run just by keeping it on the infield.”
O’Hearn doubled home the one runner Erik Miller inherited from Birdsong, who came one out away from completing six innings for the second time in his career and had to settle for his second-longest start as a big leaguer.
“I thought he did really well,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said of Birdsong, who struck out three and walked two. “I wanted to push him a little bit to go out for the sixth. I didn’t necessarily have to. After five last time, I felt like he earned it. I think it’s good for his psyche as well to know he’s back out there with a full complement.”
The 23-year-old right-hander hadn’t made it through five innings since July 27 — the last time the Giants won behind him — before he did it in his last start but didn’t waver when Spencer Bivens began to get warm midway through the third inning. Birdsong allowed the first three batters of the inning to reach safely but fired a 97 mph fastball past Gunnar Henderson for the first out of the inning and limited the damage to two runs.
Over his past two starts, Birdsong has limited opponents to three runs over 10⅔ innings, a 2.53 ERA, after pitching to an 8.31 ERA his previous six starts.
In their previous seven losses behind Birdsong, the Giants had been shut out three times and scored an average of 2.6 runs.