Giants Baseball Insider

SF Giants win game, lose two starters in 11-3 win over St. Louis

The Giants smacked around the reeling Cardinals, but J.D. Davis and Mitch Haniger got hurt on consecutive pitches in the 3rd inning

Sean Keane

SF Giants win game, lose two starters in 11-3 win over St. Louis
SF Giants win game, lose two starters in 11-3 win over St. Louis /
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On the surface, it was a great game for the SF Giants in St. Louis. Michael Conforto had four hits and drive in three runs. Mike Yastrzemski and Patrick Bailey hit back-to-back home runs in the 6th inning. Keaton Winn made his big league debut. And Alex Cobb shook off the shock of Donald Trump's arraignment to survive a no-out, bases-loaded first-inning jam and get through four innings.

But the third inning robbed the Giants of two of their best hitters - and on consecutive plays. With runners on first and third, Davis tried to go from first to third on Conforto's RBI single. Davis ran awkwardly, slid awkwardly, and his ankle bent awkwardly as it hit third base.

On the very next pitch, a slider from Jack Flaherty hit Mitch Haniger in the arm, and he left the game with what was diagnosed as a fractured forearm.

It's a tough blow to the Giants, who will bring up prospect Luis Matos from AAA Sacramento.

Matos homered for the third straight game and the sixth time in six games tonight, before being pulled mid-game so he could head to St. Louis to join the big team.

Casey Schmitt ran for Haniger and Blake Sabol replaced Davis in the lineup, playing left field. Both delivered in their first at-bats in the fifth inning.

Sabol led off with a single, and went to third on Conforto's single - and a Jordan Walker error. Schmitt drove in Sabol with a single, then scored two batters later on RBI single from Bailey. Then Brandon Crawford executed a perfect safety squeeze, the Giants' second in two weeks, to give the Giants a 6-2 lead.

While the Giants left the bases loaded in the fifth, they broke the game wide open one inning later. Yastrzemski hit a two-run homer with Conforto on first, and Bailey hit the very next pitch over the left field wall.

Keaton Winn earned a save in his first big league appearance, closing out the game with four solid innings of relief. Winn walked three and gave up only one hit, an RBI double from Walker in the eighth inning. That was the only run Winn gave up in a clutch, bullpen-saving outing.

Luke Jackson was the winning pitcher with a scoreless, three-strikeout fifth inning.

Conforto began the scoring with a two-run double in the first inning. St. Louis answered with a Paul Goldschmidt RBI infield single, but with the bases loaded and no one out, Cobb induced two strikeouts and an RBI fielder's choice to keep the game at 2-2.

San Francisco tacked on two insurance runs in the ninth after an infield single from Thairo Estrada scored Crawford, and Sabol hit a sacrifice fly, Overall, the Giants had 17 hits and seven walks, with the top three lineup spots - Lamonte Wade Jr, Thairo Estrada, and Joc Pederson/Wilmer Flores - reaching base ten times.

David Villar is also joining the Giants in St. Louis to fill in for Davis, while Matos is likely to make his major league debut tomorrow. 

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Sean Keane
SEAN KEANE

Sean Keane (he/him) is a writer, stand-up, and co-host of the Roundball Rock NBA podcast. He wrote for Comedy Central’s “Another Period,” his work has appeared in McSweeney's, Audible.com, and Yardbarker, and he's performed at countless festivals, including SF Sketchfest, the Bridgetown Comedy Festival, RIOT LA, and NoisePop. In 2014, the San Francisco Bay Guardian named Sean an “Outstanding Local Discovery,” and promptly went out of business.

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