Eighteen games into the season, the Giants have their second five-game winning streak.
San Francisco won at least five consecutive games seven times during its 107-win 2021 campaign. This current streak has spanned three cities, with three wins coming in Washington D.C., another in Milwaukee, and Tuesday night’s back in Oracle Park against the cross-bay rival Athletics.
Wilmer Flores drove in four runs with a double and home run while Carlos Rodón continued his excellent season in SF with nine more strikeouts. No Giants pitcher since 1901 has recorded more Ks through four games than Rodón, the latest front office find.
With Flores and Rodón’s games, along with an additional Austin Slater homer late, the Giants (13-5) extended their winning streak with an 8-2 victory.
The game had a strange feeling to it from the start, as the Giants announced an acute trade right before the Star-Spangled Banner played. That happened shortly after a 40-man roster spot opened as Zack Littell hit the COVID injured list.
Another distraction clouded over the park in the form of a string of bizarre tweets from Athletics president Dave Kaval. The A’s, in the middle of a tense push for a new ballpark in Howard Terminal, have struggled to fill the Coliseum (est. 1966), and Kaval ran with photos of a partly empty Oracle Park around the time of first-pitch Tuesday.
It was strange to see a powerful public figure deflect so clearly. At one point, he tweeted at the Oracle Park Seagull for calling his behavior childish. Kaval tagged local San Francisco reporters, urging them to report the Giants’ attendance numbers as some have done for Oakland.
Oakland, which traded away its talented players to restart its competitive window and also jacked up ticket prices, are by far last in average attendance this year. Oracle Park’s announced attendance on Tuesday: 32,898. There was even a healthy amount of Athletics fans cheering on their half of the rivalry, enjoying a modern park.
What they saw was an impactful night for Flores and history for Rodón.
Flores opened the scoring for San Francisco in the second inning with a double off the top of the left field wall. He turned on a 1-2 Daulton Jefferies curveball like he knew it was coming.
An inning later, Flores launched a Jefferies sinker over the fence he almost scaled. It was his second home run of the year, and it was an absolute no-doubter. Tuesday marked the 11th game of his career with at least four RBI.
Flores (2-for-4, four RBI, two runs) gave Rodón enough run support.
Rodón fanned nine Athletics in six innings, allowing one run in the process. He threw a season-high 104 pitches, 74 of which went for strikes.
The southpaw generated 15 whiffs — seven on his elite four-seam fastball and eight on his slider. The one run he allowed was a cheapie; nine-hitter Nick Allen walked, advanced to second on a wild pitch, then scored on a grounded single up the middle.
Rodón’s nine strikeouts give him 38 through four starts. That’s the best four-game start of a Giants career ever, surpassing Christy Matthewson’s 34 strikeouts and Tim Lincecum’s 35 from 2009.
Rodón, who signed a two-year, $44 million contract with an opt-out, is the type of player the Athletics haven’t been able — or willing — to sign. That dynamic won’t change for the small-market club until it gets a new ballpark (if ever).
But until the Athletics’ prospects are able to contribute at the big league level, they’ll be once again competing on a different playing field than the Giants and the rest of the sport.
And when Austin Slater swatted a three-run homer just over the right field brick in the seventh inning, the score 32,898 fans saw when they looked up said as much.