SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants’ starting rotation has been banged up recently, with Alex Cobb and Jakob Junis joining Anthony DeSclafani on the injured list this month. Those absences have put an even greater onus on the club’s healthy starters to perform, and so far, they’ve been delivering.
Left-hander Alex Wood extended the Giants’ recent run of strong pitching by firing six innings of two-run ball in a 6-2, series-opening win over the Royals on Monday night at Oracle Park.
Wood allowed only four hits while walking one and striking out five in his 12th start of the year, lowering his ERA to 4.11. The 31-year-old veteran retired the final 10 batters he faced, though the Giants decided to lift him with his pitch count at 80 after he had to sit through a lengthy rally in the bottom of the sixth inning.
The move ended up working out, as relievers Mauricio Llovera, Jake McGee and Camilo Doval combined to toss three scoreless innings to secure San Francisco’s fourth consecutive win. The Giants have held opponents to two or fewer runs over that surge to pull within three games of the Dodgers and Padres, who are now tied atop the National League West standings.
The Giants tallied only five hits on Monday, but they drew a season-high nine walks and managed to cash in on enough of those free passes to topple the last-place Royals.
“I will say that when we’re at our best offensively, we’re seeing a lot of pitches, taking balls on the borderline,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “I think there were some easier takes for us tonight, but I thought we did a nice job of sticking with our game plan and our approach throughout the game. I thought it was, overall, a quality offensive night for us.”
Wood allowed the leadoff hitter to reach in each of his first three innings, though the Royals didn’t capitalize until the third, when Carlos Santana walked, advanced to third on a double by Emmanuel Rivera and scored on a sacrifice fly by Whit Merrifield. Bobby Witt Jr. followed with an infield single that deflected off Wood’s glove and knocked in another run, extending the Royals’ lead to 2-0.
Wood cruised the rest of the way, but the Giants felt it was prudent to lift him after six innings, particularly since there won’t be many opportunities to give him extra days of rest from here until the All-Star break. Wood was coming off a season-high seven innings against the Rockies last week and had expressed a desire to pitch deeper into games earlier this month, but he said he was fine with giving way to Llovera in the seventh.
“Those really long [innings] were tough, especially later in the game,” Wood said. “I was going to go back out, but I didn’t know how much longer that inning was going to go, so we just figured [we’d] give Llovera enough time to warm up and get a clean inning and take it down from there. It worked out.”
After an intense series against the rival Dodgers this past weekend, the Giants’ bats came out a little flat early on Monday, though they eventually strung together some rallies by taking advantage of free passes.
Kansas City right-hander Brady Singer didn’t allow a hit until surrendering a two-out double to No. 9 hitter Austin Wynns in the third, but the Giants proceeded to draw four consecutive walks — including two with the bases loaded — to tie the game, 2-2. It was an uncharacteristic stretch for the 25-year-old Singer, who entered Monday having issued only four walks over 35 1/3 innings this season.
Pinch-hitter Austin Slater later opened the sixth with a leadoff walk against reliever Amir Garrett and came around to score on Thairo Estrada’s RBI single to put the Giants ahead, 3-2. Kansas City gifted San Francisco two more runs in the seventh, when Darin Ruf and Slater walked and scored on Brandon Crawford’s two-run double.
“I always want to stay aggressive,” Crawford said. “You don’t want the previous at-bats to take away from that at all. … I don’t necessarily want to just go up and take pitches and just assume he’s going to walk me because I’m not as good of a hitter that way.”