For the first time this season, the ball was eager to leave the yard for the San Francisco Giants. The afternoon Chicago wind seemed far friendlier to the visitors than the harsh environs of the Bronx this past weekend.
After accruing just a pair of home runs against the Yankees, the Giants combined for seven in their first of three innings against the Chicago White Sox, with four of those coming in an electric fifth inning.
In concert with a great day from Anthony DeSclafani, it made for a 12-3 win, the first comfortable one of the year.
It was a performance which came against a nasty, young pitcher in Michael Kopech who wasn’t especially prone to home runs entering this game. Kopech, 26, came in with a 1.1 HR/9 inning rate and looked like he might sit down the Giants with some regularity in the early going.
But an early jolt from Joc Pederson and a contagious power surge made those worries evaporate.
That fifth inning was the defining, staggering portion of the game.
Ironically, it began with the man most visibly struggling: Michael Conforto.
He entered this game with six strikeouts in 12 plate appearances, and struck out twice, both looking, in his first two on Monday. He had a third strikeout and his ninth of the season, in the top of the sixth.
For those of you math whizzes out there, Conforto is on pace to strike out more than 300 times this season. That is less than ideal. The record is 223 times by Mark Reynolds in 2009 (the White Sox’s Yoan Moncada came close with 217 in 2018, fourth-most of all time).
But his lone bright moment in the fifth was enough to spark the rest of the lineup. After an opening out from Lamonte Wade Jr., Conforto jacked a 404-foot homer to right field to give San Francisco a 4-0 lead.
Next up? Thairo Estrada and a 422-foot shot to left field.
The air in the building started to dissipate with that one, and it completely departed later in the inning. After Pederson — who got the Giants on the board in the second with a homer — flew out, a second pair of back-to-back jacks followed, this time from Mike Yastrzemski and David Villar.
If you’re asking yourself the last time the Giants had two sets of back-to-back home runs in the same inning, well, the answer is never. Monday was the first time in franchise history that they’d ever accomplished that feat on a day they made mince meat of a young pitcher.
Kopech, who came into this season after a couple solid seasons (3.53 ERA over 188.2 innings) but an iffy spring (7.11 ERA in 11.2 innings) was furious with himself after Villar’s home run, shouting into his glove before being removed from the game.
San Francisco was quiet after his departure… until the ninth. Chicago brought in hard-throwing reliever Jose Ruiz, who, to put it lightly, couldn’t buy an out.
He walked Estrada, allowed a single to Wilmer Flores, then walked Yastrzemski to load the bases with no outs.
Next? Just a first-career grand slam for Villar, his second home run of the day. He was followed a couple batters later by a first career home run for Bryce Johnson… as a lefty, where his batting average was 80 points lower last season than as a righty.
The former sixth-round pick from 2017 came into this season as a fan and clubhouse favorite after an electric spring, when he slashed .310/.425/.405 with 12 stolen bases.
His home run, in just his 21st career plate appearance, put them up by nine runs and saw White Sox infielder Hanser Alberto placed on the mound — which is allowed when a team is trailing by at least eight runs in the ninth inning.
The Giants were the team on the other side of Murphy’s Law. What could go right, would go right. It was a game that saw hits secured for players with just one on the season and the first for Wilmer Flores. Everyone got a piece.
On the other end, Antonio DeSclafani was outstanding.
He pitched six sterling innings, striking out four and allowing just three hits and zero runs. He threw just 73 pitches, and in another era, would certainly have remained in the game for at least a few more outs.
Given the ugly couple of innings Sean Manaea provided — getting shelled for three runs, including a home run, a couple hits and a couple walks — it’s not terribly hard to argue that he should have stayed in. But at this stage of the season, and with a 7-0 lead, it’s not worth too much scrutiny.
DeSclafani’s go-to slider was snapping across the plate with an impressive consistency, and all five of his pitches found a place over the course of the game.
He was fired up, as was evidenced by a bizarre moment in the second when he chirped at Chicago’s Andrew Vaughn on a 3-0 dribbler that made for an easy out at first. Just about everyone was baffled by the interaction, which should have an interesting postgame explanation.
There were only a couple of times he needed help, and got it. In the bottom of the second, Villar ranged over to snag a chopper over the third base bag to throw out Eloy Jimenez, and Yastrzemski tracked down a deep, low fly ball from Tim Anderson in the third.
Brandon Crawford also helped out Manaea, who was far more desperate for assistance, with a vintage, backhand grab up the middle to throw out Elvis Andrus.
In the fourth, DeSclafani provided his own help in the only jam he found himself all game long. After allowing back-to-back singles, he drew a good, ole fashioned 4-6-3 double play to conclude the inning.
It was a game that was as much about the Giants coming alive and DeSclafani being clinical as it was about Kopech consistently missing his spots.
His curveball just was not viable, yet he continued to throw it — and hang it — over the heart of the plate. Giants batters were all too eager to take advantage of the quasi batting practice pitches.
While Kopech had an impressive start to the game, the signs of a fraying performance were there.
That was thanks to Pederson, who is already off to a power-hungry start to the season. He got the Giants on the board in the top of the second with a no-doubter to deep right-center field. Kopech dipped his head towards the ground and refused to watch the 432-foot shot climb its way deep into the stands.
That spark alleviated early concerns that the Giants would strike out incessantly, as they had in the first three games. Their 41 strikeouts in New York were the most in a season-opening series in the San Francisco era.
It was nothing like that whiff fest on Monday. After Pederson’s opener, Roberto Perez made it 2-0 in the second. Kopech, after walking Mike Yastrzemski and Blake Sabol, offered up one of the more middle-middle fastballs you’ll ever see. Perez obliged the gift with a shot single to left that brought in Yastrzemski.
There was nearly a third homer on the year from Pederson in the fourth, but the 6-foot-2-inch Luis Robert Jr. leaped up in center field to rob him of a two-run shot.
Thairo Estrada had bunted his way on brilliantly right before, but was stranded only momentarily. Another mistake from Kopech — this one, one of those repeated, hanging curves — was ripped to right field for a stand-up double by Yastrzemski, making it 3-0.
Kopech looked like he was experimenting a bit, and perhaps too much. He threw changeups on just 1.2 percent of his pitches last year, but opened up Monday’s contest with a nice, fading change that fell into the righty batter’s box to strike out Lamonte Wade Jr. on the first at-bat of the game.
Kopech proceeded to get Michael Conforto looking, and touched 97 for the second out. But that Pederson home run and a brief spell of ensuing hard rain seemed to interrupt his rhythm. He never recovered.
Meanwhile, DeSclafani was almost flawless, to the point that Manaea’s struggles didn’t matter much. It was a well-rounded performance from the Giants in the early going.