Giants win a game! Giants win a game!

The San Francisco Giants defeated the Oakland Athletics today 7-3. This was a much needed shot of adrenaline after 11 abysmal losses to their division rivals over the last two weeks. They didn’t just win, they showed actual signs of life, with core members of their 2021 team showing a glimpse of what we remembered from last year.

It had everything. Dingers. More dingers. Pinch-hit dingers. Walked-in runs. Walked runners scoring. Competent defense. Mostly solid pitching. Honestly, I had started to forget that a game could have all of those things for the Giants. I thought you had to pick one per game.

Let’s start with Carlos Rodón, who didn’t have his strongest start, but despite not missing a ton of bats, he still held the A’s to one run on five hits with three strikeouts in five and a third innings. This was followed by strong appearances from Tyler Rogers, who finished the sixth inning allowing just a hit. Yunior Marte, who walked one with a strikeout in the seventh inning.

Jarlín García, who had been struggling lately, struck out two, allowing just a walk in the eighth inning. However, things did not go quite as well when he was brought back out to pitch the ninth. More on that later.

It was apparent early in the game that the team had been missing Brandon Crawford and Joc Pederson, who both came back from the injured list today and put their mark on this game early.

Pederson kicked things off with a leadoff walk and was ultimately walked-in by Crawford. LaMonte Wade, Jr. doubled to lead off the second inning and was knocked in by a single from Pederson to give the Giants their second run of the game.

The A’s cut that lead in half in the third inning, with Nick Allen hitting a lead-off single and taking second on a ground-out from Chad Pinder, before being knocked in by a single from Sean Murphy.

But the Giants roared back in the sixth inning in a big way. Joey Bart hit a leadoff single, before being knocked in by a home run from Wade.

This knocked starting pitcher Adam Oller out of the game, replaced by Kirby Snead, who immediately gave up a massive home run to J.D. Davis, his second in two games.

Brandon Belt, who’d shown visible frustration with his performance at the plate today, finally had his opportunity to partake in the festivities when he singled to knock in Austin Slater (who had walked, stolen second, and advanced to third on a fly out) to give the Giants their fourth run of the inning.

The fun continued in the seventh inning when Joey Bart decided to kick off a stampede of BART jokes by hitting his own soaring home run to left center field, giving the Giants their seventh run of the night.

But the A’s were not done. As is wont to happen in the ninth inning these days when the Giants have a lead, the wheels started flying off before a single out was recorded. Elvis Andrus singled to lead things off, followed quickly by a home run from Skye Bolt.

Jarlín García stayed in and got a pop out from Stephen Vogt, before Nick Allen singled, to the nervousness of Giants fans everywhere. (I myself was having strong flashbacks to my recap last weekend when the Giants entered with a 5-1 lead, and barely held on to win 5-4.)

So it was a huge relief (no pun intended) when García managed to strike out both Jonah Bride and Pinder to end the game.