SF Giants’ Beck impresses again out of the bullpen to help clinch series vs. Arizona
SAN FRANCISCO – The Giants didn’t make a splashy move at the trade deadline, instead opting to trust the depth of their roster. That depth came through Thursday for the Giants in the form of pitcher Tristan Beck.
The rookie right-hander pitched four scoreless innings with three strikeouts following opener Scott Alexander’s scoreless inning to help secure a 1-0 win over the Diamondbacks (57-53) and a series victory over San Francisco’s division rival. Beck’s outing followed two innings of scoreless relief in Sunday’s victory over the Red Sox after Beck was recalled from Triple-A Sacramento.
Beck, a 27-year-old Stanford alum, has allowed five earned runs in 32 innings pitched across his two major league stints, walking just nine and striking out 23.
“Any day you can throw up some zeroes and get the team a win is a great day,” Beck said, adding that advice from Brandon Webb helped him settle into the major leagues. “When I first got up here I felt like I was working really slowly and like I was trying to slow things down.”
The Giants (61-49) are now tied with the Orioles for the most wins in the major leagues by three or fewer runs (44). With the win, they pulled within two games of the Dodgers for the NL West lead and put themselves four games ahead of the Diamondbacks.
After stringing together a couple of somewhat high-scoring games, tallying four runs in back-to-back games for the first time in two weeks, San Francisco got carved up by Arizona righty Brandon Plaadt early on, who entered the game with an 8.20 ERA.
Shortstop Brandon Crawford, who hit a triple and a home run respectively in his previous two games, and Wilmer Flores were not in the lineup for rest. Kapler told the media pregame that Crawford had jammed his pinky finger sliding into third on a triple Wednesday night.
In his first trip through the lineup, Plaadt retired all nine in a row. The second showdown with leadoff hitter LaMonte Wade was another story. Wade hit his 11th home run of the season over right field to give San Francisco an early 1-0 lead.
Wade entered the game with a .457 on-base percentage as a leadoff hitter, third-highest in the league, and now has four hits in his last three games after being mired in a 12-for-62 slump. Wade’s home run was all the offense the Giants would get or need, as they were held to two hits. The D-backs managed six hits but didn’t score.
“Barry (Bonds) said that if he wasn’t getting hits, he was trying to worry about taking away hits from other people,” Wade said about the kind of advice he gets from the all-time home run king during daily conversations. “Even though we weren’t getting results, I still thought we were taking good swings.”
The Giants are now 15-5 when employing an opener. Beck threw 48 pitches, and Kapler addressed the idea of making Beck a starter by posing a rhetorical question.
“I think there is a case (for making him a starter), but is there a case for letting a guy kick ass and keep kicking ass in the role that they’re in because it’s good for them,” Kapler said.
Sean Manaea came in for two outs in the sixth before being replaced by Luke Jackson.
Arizona had one of its best chances to score in that inning, when leadoff hitter Corbin Carroll swiped his 34th bag of the season, then advanced to third on a rare bad throw by rookie catcher Patrick Bailey.
Jackson induced a harmless Emmanuel Rivera flyout to Michael Conforto for the third out.
Taylor Rogers worked his way out of another two-runner jam in the top of the eighth, getting Carroll to pop up and then taking a ground ball from Emmanuel Rivera to the shoulder before making the throw over to first.
“We think it’s soft tissue stuff and that he’s going to be OK, but he’s gonna be sore for a couple of days,” Kapler said.
The Giants bullpen and defense, which has had the second-best fielding percentage in baseball since July 1 (.994), closed out the game. Camilo Doval recorded his 33rd save of the season, Beck earned the victory and improved to 3-0, and Pfaadt dropped to 0-5 after pitching seven innings and striking out seven.
The Giants finished the nine-game homestand with a 7-2 record, and won’t have to travel very far to face their next opponent. The flailing Oakland A’s and their league-worst 30-79 record will host the team on Saturday in the Bay Bridge series.