SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants (56-33) continued their run through the NL West, beating the Diamondbacks (38-51) on Saturday afternoon, 4-2. They’re now 30-15 against divisional opponents, the best record of any team against their own division. Here’s how the everything played out.
MORE: Giants continue ascent with odd win over D’Backs
The big moment
Grant Green just might stick around. He’s hitting .300 in eight games with the Giants, who went through trouble to clear a 40-man roster spot for the former first-round pick. Kelby Tomlinson is underwhelming on his rehab assignment and can be optioned back to the minor leagues. Green helped his case with his first home run as a Giant.
At the plate
The Giants pecked away at Robbie Ray for two innings and 40 pitches before breaking through. Pagan reached base on his second single of the day, and scored the Giants first run in the third inning when Brandon Belt clubbed a triple into the right-center alley. With his fifth triple of the year, Belt’s one off his career high.
Green one-upped Belt by hitting one over the fence, scoring Brandon Crawford to give the Giants a fourth-inning lead. Crawford only reached base after Lamb lost a popup in the sun and had it clank off his left shoulder.
The Giants stretched their lead to two in the sixth inning. Ruben Tejada shot a double down the left field line, scoring Gregor Blanco from first base.
On the mound
With the All-Star break in sight and Madison Bumgarner throwing on Sunday, the leash was never going to be long on Peavy. Bruce Bochy, who stuck around for the entirety of the game after Friday’s early ejection, turned to the matchup game in the fifth inning. Peavy had labored through a 28-pitch first inning, squeezed out of trouble in the fourth inning and worked himself into another jam in the fifth. Bochy pulled him with Giant-killer Jake Lamb coming up with the go-ahead run on base.
Because Javier Lopez, Crawford and George Kontos teamed up to bail Peavy out, his finished with a cleaner line of two runs allowed over 4 1/3 innings. His best work came right after his worst. Four Diamondbacks got a hit off Peavy to start the fourth inning, and the bullpen quickly began to warm. But Peavy, who was often burned by the big inning earlier this year, limited the damage. He got three outs from the bottom-third of Arizona’s lineup to escape the inning with only two runs allowed.
By far though, this was the best moment of Peavy’s outing.
ICYMI: 3 points for Buster's bank shot ? #SFGiants pic.twitter.com/MqDw4OiK13
— #WeAreSF (@SFGiants) July 9, 2016
In the ‘pen
After this happened, Lopez eventually entered in the fifth inning to face Lamb, who has more hits off the Giants than any other team this year. The Diamondbacks third baseman grounded one to the right of second base, a ball Crawford shifted over to improbably pick up and get the out at first. That put runners on second and third with two away, and Bochy plucked Kontos to face Yasmany Tomas.
He lined out to Pagan in left to defuse the rally, and Kontos came out to pitch a clean sixth inning as well. Albert Suarez began the seventh inning, and immediately ran into trouble as Phil Gosselin and Jean Segura reached. Suarez got Bourn to flyout in deep center, and then in perhaps the biggest at-bat of the game, struck out Goldshmidt on a tailing sinker.
Josh Osich got the final out of the inning, rounding out a well-executed series of matchups from the bullpen. Sergio Romo pitched on back-to-back days for the first time since returning from the DL, and breezed through the eighth on 10 pitches. Santiago Casilla worked around a double in the ninth to notch his 21st save.
On deck
Madison Bumgarner (9-4, 2.09 ERA) closes out the Giants first half, squaring off with Archie Bradley (3-4, 4.81 ERA) and the Diamondbacks on Sunday Night Baseball. The Giants left-hander is 8-7 with a 2.54 career ERA against Arizona, and was the tough-luck loser in his only start this season against them. He took the loss after allowing two runs over seven innings. First pitch at 5:08 p.m. can be heard on KNBR 680.