SAN FRANCISCO — Brandon Belt’s eyes widened and he paused for a moment. There’s been a lot of impressive numbers about the Giants’ winning stretch, but perhaps none more remarkable than this stat fed to Belt after Friday’s win.
The Giants have won 31 of their last 40 games, tying the 1954 team with the best 40-game stretch in franchise history.
“Wow,” Belt said. “Honestly I didn’t know that. That’s pretty impressive.
“It’s been a lot of fun. It’s a lot of fun when you win games.”
And the Giants (48-27) have done plenty of that. With a 5-4 win over the Phillies (31-44), the Giants opened a seven-game division lead over the Dodgers. They’re currently on track to win 104 games, and things might somehow get even better. It’ll be nearly a month before the Giants play a team with a winning record.
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They’ve beat up on losing teams in the meantime, winning nearly 70 percent of the time, and the latest punishment came largely from Belt. He swatted a go-ahead, bases-clearing double in the seventh inning to score three runs and push the Giants ahead, 4-2. They aren’t hitting at a historical pace, but the Giants are opportune as ever.
Belt lifted the team’s average to .407 with the bases loaded, a figure indicative of timely hitting, if nothing else.
“You want to have to be the guy,” manager Bruce Bochy said, “and I think all of them do. I think they want to be up there. Being the guy with men on base when we need a big hit.”
Friday was Belt’s turn to clean the bases, scoring Trevor Brown, Buster Posey and Joe Panik almost simultaneously. But on Thursday it was Panik who clubbed the game-changing hit, knocking in three runs in an eventual 5-3 win. Bochy’s made headlines this season by maximizing his bullpen carousel, but lately it’s been the lineup that hasn’t stopped turning.
The Giants are hitting .323 in their last 11 games, and haven’t blinked despite the absences of Matt Duffy and Hunter Pence. Trevor Brown even reached base twice during a scheduled day off for Posey, who knocked a pinch-single in the four-run seventh inning. There hasn’t been one trump card to lean on in the lineup like years past.
Their calling card has been every card.
“I don’t think there’s one person that has to step up,” Belt said, “it’s got to be a team thing.”
Before stringing a seventh-inning rally together, it was Jake Peavy (4-6, 5.22 ERA) who kept the game within reach. Even while allowing only a pair of runs in seven innings, he actually raised his ERA to 1.91 over his last six outings. He’s bandaged the back of the Giants’ rotation that could’ve easily fallen apart by now, seeing as Peavy was sporting an ERA north of eight after nine starts.
“When the season started I didn’t get much leash, and rightfully so,” Peavy said. “But when you pitch well and give (Bochy) a reason to leave you out there, he’ll show confidence in you.”
He’s steadied things along with Albert Suarez, and gave due credit to his rookie catcher Friday night. Peavy said there was no difference in the game Brown called compared to what he’d see from Posey. Brown might not win an MVP award anytime soon, but he filled in the shoes pretty well in the series-opener. In addition to reaching base during the game-winning rally, he picked off two runners to help Peavy escape a pair of jams.
Brown joins a cast of several players that have sured up the Giants bench. A 5-1 road trip provided highlight-reel performances from Mac Williamson, Ramiro Peña and Conor Gillaspie. In the spirit of every card being the trump card, it was Peña who ended the game atop the deck.
He made the game’s biggest play in his one inning at third base. After Santiago Casilla loaded the bases with two outs in the ninth inning, Peña hastily charged a Tyler Goeddel dribbler at third base to barely throw him out.
The Giants spilled onto the field after instant replay confirmed the out, and cemented yet another win. A win they won’t appreciate now as much as they might after the season, realizing they’ve done something unlike any Giants team in the last 62 years.
Said Belt: “It’s a lot of fun when you win games and I think that comes from the top, all the way down.”