ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Somebody apparently paid the electricity bill because the Giants turned the power back on Saturday after a week in the dark.
Seven of the Giants’ runs in an 11-2 romp over the Rays came on a quintet of longballs, two from Thairo Estrada, evening their weekend series and snapping a seven-game homerless drought, the longest dry spell from the club in nearly a decade.
Another pair was driven in on a bases-loaded single from Mike Yastrzemski, one of three recently rare base hits from Giants hitters with runners in scoring position.
With Logan Webb at or near the best he’s been this season, timely hitting and a little power proved to be a winning formula.
“It seemed like everything worked for us today,” Estrada said in Spanish through interpreter Erwin Higueros.
“We got some big hits, some home runs; it’s a much better feeling today,” said manager Bob Melvin, admittedly cranky after his team managed only one run while going 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position Friday to open the series.
The Giants had lost eight of their past 11 games entering Saturday, scoring more than four runs in only one of those contests. They went 3-4 without hitting a home run, but two of the wins came by the skin of their teeth and in their third, a 7-1 win Wednesday to close the home stand, they went 6-for-8 with runners in scoring position.
In their three losses since Monday, the Giants had been 1-for-26 in those situations, lowering their season batting average to .219, fifth-worst in the majors.
Safe to say, the Giants broke out in a big way Saturday against the Rays.
Asked if he preferred the timely hits or the home run swings, Melvin said, “I’ll take either.”
The Giants slugged more homers in nine innings than they had in the previous 10 games, tied for the most by one team in a game this season. The last time they reached that total was in the elevation-aided setting of Mexico City last April.
The biggest came off the bat of Jorge Soler, who drove a letter-high fastball from reliever Chris Devinski an estimated 446 feet to center field, while Matt Chapman piled on with a solo shot off catcher Ben Rortvedt in the top of the ninth.
“The home run thing was kind of festering here for a little bit,” Melvin said. “As you can see, we have plenty of guys who can hit the ball out of the ballpark.”
The 11 runs were the most the Giants scored in 15 games this season and the first time they reached double-digits.
In addition to Yastrzemski’s RBI single, LaMonte Wade Jr. drove home Jung Hoo Lee from second with his fifth-inning homer and Patrick Bailey drove in Estrada with a ground-rule double that bounced over the left-field wall to make it 7-1 in the sixth.
Both of Estrada’s homers were no-doubters to left field, and the second baseman appears to be heating up. His double-dinger game came a day after his first multi-hit contest of the season. When the Giants arrived in Florida, Estrada was batting .160 with a .413 OPS, one of the worst qualified hitters in the league, but has since gone 4-for-7 — three of the hits for extra bases — raising his average to .211 and his OPS by more than 200 points, to .637.
“It was just a matter of time for him,” Melvin said. “I said before the season that I thought this was kind of the year he could potentially step up and be an All-Star, and I still think that. There’s a lot in there, as you can see.”
San Francisco Giants pitcher Logan Webb delivers to the Tampa Bay Rays during the first inning of a baseball game Saturday, April 13, 2024, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O’Meara)
The recipient of the least run support in the majors last season, Webb got about a month’s worth of scoring in one start.
Webb took the mound with a 1-0 lead, thanks to an RBI double from Michael Conforto, and each of the final four times he emerged from the dugout, the advantage had only grown larger. Estrada’s first homer put the Giants up 2-1 in the fourth, Wade’s two-run shot made it 4-1 in the fifth and they added three runs apiece in the sixth and the seventh.
“The boys were swinging it today,” Webb said, letting out a chuckle when asked about the offense’s day. “They’ve been grinding, man. It’s early in the season and you can’t get down on yourself. These guys haven’t done that once. It was good to see them finally get some reassurance that it’s going to be all right.”
Limiting the Rays to one run on six hits over seven innings, Webb was so effective that he successfully pleaded his case to Melvin when the manager came out to get him with two outs in the sixth inning. Holding a nine-run lead, with his starter’s pitch count at an economical number, Melvin walked back to the dugout unaccompanied. Webb joined him a batter later after generating his 14th ground-ball out of the game to end the inning.
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“I was going to give him one more hitter if he wanted it, and he did,” Melvin said.
“If I ever answer ‘No,’ I probably shouldn’t be playing this game anymore,” Webb said. “I thought I was out and I probably said some cuss words as he was walking out. He said, ‘You want it?’ and I said, ‘Eff, yeah, I want it.’ He said, ‘All right, let’s do this’ and walked away. It’s awesome to have him show that confidence in me.”
The Rays only scored their second run once Nick Avila entered with a 10-1 lead in the bottom of the eighth.
Up next
As the Giants go for their second win in five series this season, Blake Snell will make his first start as a visitor at Tropicana Field, facing his former team for only the second time. LHP Tyler Alexander (0-0, 8.68) will start the series finale for the Rays. First pitch is scheduled for 10:40 a.m. PT, with the Giants on their way to Miami once it wraps up.
