A second straight victory in Colorado has the Giants on the brink of sweeping their first series of the season.
Beating the woeful Rockies again Thursday would be a welcome way to end this 10-game road trip which the Giants started by anemically losing the first two of three in Boston before getting swept in a four-game visit to Philadelphia.
Michael Conforto got Wednesday night’s 8-6 win started by opening the second inning with a first-pitch home run into Coors Field’s right-field seats. That ignited a six-run rally by — let’s double check — yes, an aggressive Giants squad that failed to score that many runs in any of their previous 14 games.
This marked only the fourth time this season the Giants (17-21) have won back-to-back games. Thursday’s 12:10 p.m. PT start pits the Giants’ Keaton Winn (3-4, 4.41) against Cal Quantrill (1-3, 4.31).
After beating the Rockies 5-0 on Monday behind Kyle Harrison’s seven shutout innings, the Giants continued to make offensive strides, and manager Bob Melvin wasn’t going to credit that to playing in a hitter-friendly, mile-high ballpark.
“Our bats have been better this series. I’ve never going to discount that,” Melvin told reporters after the game.
Colorado fell to a MLB-worst 8-28 with its ninth loss in the past 10 games; the Rockies have been swept in four previous series this season. The Giants return to Oracle Park on Friday night for a nine-game homestand, with three-game sets against the Cincinnati Reds, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the Rockies again.
Wednesday’s six-run rally matched the Giants’ most runs in an inning since a March 30 win San Diego, their third game of the season.
After Conforto turned on an inside fastball for his sixth home run of the season (and first in 13 games), the Giants got three consecutive singles, from Matt Chapman, Mike Yastrzemski and Heliot Ramos, the latter of whom got called up from Triple-A Sacramento for not just his season debut but his initiation to hitter-friendly Coors Field.
Ramos’ opposite-field, RBI single scored Chapman for a 2-0 lead. Showing off the hitting prowess that had him batting .296 with eight home runs and 21 RBI in Sacramento, Ramos fell behind 0-2 in his initial at-bat in Colorado, then he fouled off a 1-2 fastball before lining a 94.2-mph sinker to right field.
Ramos served as the designated hitter as the Giants placed slumping slugger Jorge Soler on the 10-day Injury List with a shoulder strain. Ramos had hit just .158 in big-league cameos the past two seasons covering 34 games.
The Giants’ lead climbed to 3-0 when Yastrzemski dove head-first to safely score on Nick Ahmed’s surprising, one-out bunt. Jung Hoo Lee made it 4-0 by drilling a slider 105 mph off the right-field wall and driving in Ramos. A two-out, two-RBI flare by LaMonte Wade Jr. pushed the Giants’ lead to 6-0, and Conforto followed with a single for his second hit of the inning, before Chapman flew out to end the long-sought rally.
Another run came the next inning, when a Blake Sabol double scored Ystrzemski for a 7-1 lead.
That proved a wide enough berth to improve Giants starter Jordan Hicks’ record to 3-1.
“This is his first time starting here, so the breaking balls are always, kind of, see how it goes when you’re here and if you have to make any adjustments with it,” Melvin said. “So, yeah, maybe not his best command. He threw a lot of pitches (92), but at the end of the day, he gives us five solid innings and gets the win.”
The first hit Hicks allowed was a 420-foot triple to Brenton Doyle off the center-field wall, on an 0-2, two-out fastball in the bottom of the second; Doyle would score on a passed ball charged to catcher Blake Sabol, for a 6-1 deficit.
Hicks did his share to protect that lead, though he had to work out of jams. Back-to-back strikeouts stranded two Rockies in the fourth, and after Colorado scratched across two runs in the fifth, Hicks induced an inning-ending double play. That ended his night (three runs, seven hits, five strikeouts, two walks in 92 pitches).
“Wasn’t my favorite outing, but we battled, made some good pitches toward the end, got the (fifth inning) double play,” Hicks told reporters in the clubhouse. “… I’m not too down on myself. We got the win. Hopefully we get the sweep tomorrow.”
Reliever Sean Hjelle yielded two hits to the four batters he faced before Taylor Rogers allowed an RBI single to Charlie Blackmon, cutting the Giants’ lead to 7-4 through six innings. The Giants took an 8-4 lead in the eighth, when Chapman’s infield single prompted an errant throw to bring in Conforto, who reached on a nine-pitch, two-out walk.
Giants closer Camilo Duval walked the first two batters he faced in the ninth. Then he induced a double-play grounder, and that involved him rushing over to cover first base for the second out. But Duval’s next pitch resulted in an Ellias Diaz home run, cutting the Giants’ lead to 8-6. That’s as close as Colorado could get, as Duval got Brendan Rogers to ground out to Nick Ahmed to end it.
Conforto finished 3-for-4 with a walk and two runs scored. Sabol went 3-for-4 with an RBI double. Yasztrzemski was 2-for-4 with a triple and two runs scored.
