SAN DIEGO, CA - SEPTEMBER 8: Luis Matos #29 of the San Francisco Giants looks skyward after hitting a solo home during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres on September 8, 2024 at Petco Park in San Diego, California. (Photo by Denis Poroy/Getty Images)
SAN DIEGO — Bob Melvin sees the gap in the standings, the one that wasn’t there less than two months ago between his club and foes within their division.
Separated by just two games at the All-Star break, the Padres and Diamondbacks now are putting in their final preparations for the postseason while the Giants have already set their sights on 2025. Even after a closer-than-it-should-have-been 7-6 win on a steamy Sunday afternoon, they trailed the Padres by 8½ games.
“For a good portion of the season, we were right there with them,” the Giants manager said this weekend. “The difference is both those teams went on a run, and we weren’t able to do that. That can separate you really quickly.”
Looking ahead to next year, Melvin continued, “There’s more work to be done. It’s certainly showed up here in the past month that there is going to be some work to be done next year. Significant, probably.”
But in taking two of three from the majors’ hottest team, there were some positive signs that the chasm isn’t as large as the current standings suggest.
The series win was the Giants’ first since they took two of three from the White Sox in the third week of August. Dating back to August 11, they had dropped 15 of 23 before prevailing the past two days. The Padres, meanwhile, have run off the best record in the majors since the All-Star break — 32-14 — to vault them comfortably into playoff position, and right behind them are the Diamondbacks (30-16, entering their Sunday Night Baseball contest against the Astros) and Dodgers (29-16).
“I think it’s encouraging that we were there for a while,” Melvin said. “It’s just gotten away from us a little bit. I don’t think we’re that far away going into next season, especially with some of the talent that we feel like we’re developing.”
Their 6-3 win Saturday night was powered by a pair of no-doubters from 23-year-old center fielder Grant McCray, who drove in five of their runs and joined Tyler Fitzgerald as the second Giants rookie with a multi-homer game this season and Matt Chapman as their only hitters with two homers and five RBIs in one game.
McCray had batted in the bottom third of the order in each of his first 19 games, but Melvin moved him up to the leadoff spot Sunday and lined up Heliot Ramos (25 years old), Fitzgerald (26), Luis Matos (22) and Marco Luciano (22) behind him. Along with Jerar Encarnacion (26) and Matt Chapman (signed through 2030), the only players in the lineup not certain to be back next year were Michael Conforto, at designated hitter, and backup catcher Curt Casali, spelling Patrick Bailey (25) after a night game.
After McCray did the heavy lifting the previous night, just about everybody but him picked up the slack while teeing off on San Diego starter Joe Musgrove.
Held hitless their first time through the lineup, the Giants unleashed a stream of seven straight hits in a six-run fourth inning, including three big ones from Chapman, Encarnacion and Matos. Chapman’s team-leading 23rd homer of the season drove in Ramos, who laced an opposite-way double to start the rally. Encarnacion’s was a three-run shot after Conforto and Fitzgerald sent singles right back up the middle.
And Matos made it back-to-back blasts with a solo shot that preceded a sharply hit double from Luciano, the only runner left on base in the inning.
For good measure, Casali added a fourth home run — his first since Oct. 4, 2022 — in the sixth, after they chased Musgrove from the game.
Similar to Encarnacion, who started the year in the Mexican League, Giants starter Spencer Bivens (30) has pitched himself into their future plans after being out of affiliated baseball entirely before signing a minor-league deal with San Francisco in 2022. Chosen to make the spot start Sunday, the only blemish on Bivens’ pitching line over 4⅓ innings was a home run from Rookie of the Year front-runner Jackson Merrill, lowering his ERA in 20 games (two starts) to 2.77.
Batting around in the fourth, the inning began and ended with McCray going down swinging, a reminder of his 39.7% strikeout rate through his young big-league career and the development left to be done. Luciano also watched a pair of strike-threes, while Matos and Encarnacion made two easy outs to leave the bases loaded in the fifth.
Perhaps of more concern, third base coach Matt Williams had to break up Luciano and Fitzgerald in the dugout after the two middle infielders failed to communicate on a pop fly in the seventh, allowing the ball to drop and two runs to score, cutting their lead to 7-4. Xander Bogaerts’ two-run homer off Camilo Doval the next inning pulled them within one, 7-6, and prompted Melvin to turn to Ryan Walker to record a five-out save despite once leading 7-0.
Fitzgerald, the shortstop, would typically have priority by default but the pop up was on the right side of second base and Luciano, a natural shortstop making his fourth start at second base, had settled under it before Fitzgerald encroached on his territory. Cameras captured the two going back and forth in the dugout after the inning and Williams coming between them.
After striking out for the third time in the top half of the next inning, Luciano was replaced on defense by Brett Wisely while Fitzgerald remained in the game.
Notable
The Giants improved to 6-4 against the Padres, clinching the season series for the first time since 2021.
Up next
The Giants are off Monday before beginning their penultimate home stand of the season against the Milwaukee Brewers. RHP Hayden Birdsong (3-5, 5.19) gets the ball Tuesday in the series opener (6:45 p.m.), followed by LHP Blake Snell (2-3, 3.62), while the final game of the series is listed as TBA.
Originally published at Evan Webeck