ARLINGTON, Texas — The Giants have not been been a particularly powerful group through the first portion of the season, entering Friday’s series opener with the Texas Rangers 22nd in the majors with 59 home runs, one of 12 teams averaging fewer than one per game.
But don’t tell them.
Wilmer Flores launched a pair of solo shots and Michael Conforto provided the tie-breaking two-run homer to guide the Giants over Bruce Bochy and the defending World Series champions, 5-2, for their second win in a row, and the second straight where the long ball loomed large.
“We really have a lot of guys who have the ability to hit some home runs,” manager Bob Melvin said. “We’ve gone some stretches where we haven’t, but we’ve probably played our best baseball when we have hit some home runs.”
Verdict: True.
The Giants have not lost this season when getting three or more home runs, but they haven’t had many chances. It had happened twice in their first 62 games before the past two contests.
A grand slam from Flores, a towering two-run shot from Heliot Ramos and a late solo shot from Jorge Soler two days prior contributed to seven of their nine runs to avoid being swept by the Diamondbacks on the first leg of this road trip.
The team-leader with 23 home runs last season, Flores had only one in his first 50 games this season before leaving the yard three times in the past two contests. Hooking near-identical solo shots to left field in his first two at-bats — both traveled 387 feet — Flores built a 2-0 lead behind Logan Webb heading into the fifth inning.
“Someone said before the game that Flo was going to hit one or two, and he hit two,” said Webb, who tossed seven innings for a league-leading eighth time in 14 starts to earn the win. “For his entire career, when Flo gets hot, he gets hot. He’s a pro’s pro. He hasn’t changed one bit since I met him. Everyday, he does the exact same thing. I think when you’re pretty consistent in what you do, good things happen.”
It was the ninth multi-homer game of Flores’ career and the fourth time he has hit three in the span of two games.
Entering the road trip, Flores was hitting the ball softer, on average, than 99% of major leaguers, but after his grand slam the previous game, Melvin remarked on its exit velocity — 105 mph — and his two homers Friday were struck at 99.7 and 105.5 mph.
“And batting practice has been much better, too,” Melvin said. “It seems like he’s been in a better position to extend. Sometimes he catches the ball a little deep and it doesn’t come off the bat as well. But he’s been working on getting the bat head out there and getting extended and in good position to drive the ball.”
The only change he has made recently, he said, was to be more aggressive. The two pitches he attacked were middle-middle fastballs in hitters’ counts.
“Nothing has changed much,” he said. “You know things are coming, right? When things are going bad, you’ve just got to be patient and keep working. I don’t allow myself to go crazy about baseball.”
To earn a win behind Webb for the first time in four starts and only the second time in his past eight times on the mound, it required one more power stroke, creating the Giants’ biggest power display over two games since they homered eight times against the Padres in México City last April.
Webb mostly mowed through the Rangers’ order, striking out six without walking a batter over seven innings but ran into trouble in the fifth, allowing the first two batters of the inning to reach base and score to even the game at 2. It was the eighth time this season Webb has gone seven or more innings, the most in the majors, but the Giants have gotten only two such starts in 50 games from the rest of their rotation.
“I thought to start the game that was probably the best stuff I’ve had all year,” Webb said. “As the game went on I felt like I missing a little bit more arm-side, but I can’t be nit-picky. I felt really good. There was a lot of stuff we’ve been working on that looked pretty good today.”
While Flores’ power swing has been absent from the lineup for much of the season for performance reasons — his past two games still left him with a .224 average and .651 OPS — the Giants missed Conforto during the 19 games he missed with a hamstring strain and welcomed him back earlier this week.
Conforto was one of the Giants’ most productive hitters before landing on the injured list, and he provided a reminder in his third time back in the starting lineup.
“Earlier in the at-bat, I took a bad swing on a cutter. It was a big swing. I just had a feeling he was going to go back to it,” Conforto said. “Always have to try to remember less is more, especially with cutter guys, the ball’s going to jump if I just get the barrel there. Just a good in-at-bat adjustment. It was good to see the ball leave the yard again.”
Driving in an insurance run with his third hit of the night the following inning was none other than Heliot Ramos, who didn’t look out of place making his first start of the season in center field and continued his hot hitting at the plate, recording multiple hits for the 11th time since he was called up May 8.
“He’s been super impressive in every facet,” said Conforto, who lined up next to him in left field. “One of the first things I noticed when he came up was just how hard he plays. He’s getting down to first very quickly. Really hard 90s. Just the effort and the energy. And then he starts hitting the crap out of the ball and, really, as the league adjusts very quickly, he’s been able to adjust with them.”
Notable
After being re-evaluated in Arizona on Thursday, LHP Blake Snell (groin) could be back on a mound by next week. “It seems to be a little bit more on the milder side than it was last time,” Melvin said of the adductor strain that landed the left-hander on the injured list for a second time in as many months.
At Triple-A Sacramento, RHP Spencer Bivens was named the Pacific Coast League pitcher of the month, the first monthly leaguewide honors earned by a River Cats player since Austin Slater in 2016. Recording his eighth save of the season Thursday night, the 29-year-old right-hander signed out of independent ball extended his scoreless streak to 10 appearances, spanning 17⅔ innings.
Up next
Both teams have their starters for the final two games of the series listed as TBA, but it should be some combination of RHP Keaton Winn (3-6, 6.17), RHP Spencer Howard (0-0, 2.08) and a possible opener against LHP Andrew Heaney (2-6, 3.99) and RHP Nathan Eovaldi (2-2, 2.70) for the Rangers.
