Giants win by doing baseball better than the Mariners

Let’s use some third grade adjectives to describe the San Francisco Giants game against Seattle Mariners.

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This game was weird.

It was supposed to be played on Tuesday, but it was played on Wednesday.

It was supposed to be played at Safeco Field, but it was played at Oracle Park.

The Giants were the road team at their own park, but they wore their home jerseys. At one point the broadcast team mentioned that it was a discussion whether or not a ball hit into the water by a Giants player would count as a Splash Hit (it would).

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This game was scary.

In the seventh inning, Sam Coonrod — who throws the ball harder than any of the other 55 players who were active — hit Dylan Moore. With a fastball. In the head. At 98 mph.

It was a terrifying moment, though Moore thankfully was not only able to get up and walk away (after a minute or so on the ground), but also stayed in the game.

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This game was opportunistic (OK, maybe not a third grade adjective, but some kids learn big words at a young age, calm down).

Mike Yastrzemski led off the first inning with a walk, the first one issued in Ljay Newsome’s career. He scored.

Brandon Crawford led off the second inning with a double. He scored.

Alex Dickerson led off the third inning with a double. He scored.

Mauricio Dubón led off the fourth inning with a walk. He scored.

Four innings, four leadoff runners, four leadoff runners scoring.

I have no idea how to check when the Giants last did that without wasting hours of my life researching something that no one else cares about, but I’m guessing it’s been a while.

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This game was fun.

Look, I love on-base percentage. I love the chess game played by both pitchers and batters. I love a perfectly turned double play. I love a nine-pitch at bat that ends in ball four being drawn on an off-speed pitch that breaks 2 centimeters out of the zone at the last possible moment.

But the home run is royalty and always will be.

And the Giants used it to their advantage, adding three more home runs to their tally, pushing their total to 64 in 48 games (after 167 a year ago, and 133 the year prior).

Brandon Belt and Evan Longoria (who both went 2-5) homered in the third inning and holy heck, look at these birds fly:

And then Brandon Crawford added to the tally by taking on center field.

Crawford also had a pair of doubles, reminding us all that he’s having one helluva bounce back season with the bat.

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This game was encouraging.

You want short term encouragement? How about Drew Smyly making his first start since Aug. 1, and striking out half of the batters he faced?

Smyly wasn’t perfect — far from it. He only made it through 3.2 innings, and needed 78 pitches just to get that far. And he gave up 3 earned runs.

But 51 of his 78 pitches were strikes, and a whole 16 of them were swinging strikes, culminating in 8 punchouts. There was every reason to come away from this start thinking Smyly is going to be a key part of the rotation when the games matter most.

Long term encouragement more your thing? Can I interest you in a Joey Bart defensive highlight? Yeah? Awesome.

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This game was successful.

The Giants won 9-3. It moved them back to .500 (and gave them their ninth road win of the year!). It held their spot in the postseason. It gave them further confidence.

It was a good game, especially if you forget the part where Caleb Baragar took over for Smyly with two on and walked three straight batters.

Good game.