San Francisco Giants 3 Up, 3 Down: Series Loss Against Twins
The San Francisco Giants dropped the first two games against the Minnesota Twins, but came back with a win on Sunday to avoid the sweep.
The San Francisco Giants narrowly avoided a sweep, coming back late in the game on Sunday to take the series finale. Here’s three positives and three negatives from that series.
1 – Slater Proving Himself
Manager Bruce Bochy said he wants someone to step up and take hold of the left field job, and Austin Slater got his chance in his first series at AT&T Park. Against the Twins, Slater made a great first impression in front of the home crowd. After taking an 0-3 with two strikeouts on Friday, Slater picked up five hits, and reached via hit by pitch, over the next two games.
On Saturday, Slater recorded his first career multi-hit game by lashing singles in the fourth and sixth innings. On Sunday, he racked up a few more firsts. It was his first three-hit day. In the fourth inning, he hit his first double. In the eighth inning, he hit his first triple which cleared the bases, giving him three runs batted in for his first multi-RBI game. He also had another single earlier in the game that drove in a run.
Slater came up big in his first chance after Orlando Calixte‘s demotion, and that should earn him plenty more chances down the road. He’s got a great opportunity to prove himself for the future.
2 – Posey’s Heavy Lifting
A lot has been made this season about Buster Posey‘s lack of run production, but he was a big producer over the weekend. He accounted for half the team’s runs on Saturday, driving in a run with a groundout, and on Sunday, he drove in a season-high four. Another groundout brought in the team’s second run in the first inning, and an RBI single against former teammate Chris Heston brought them within a run in the fifth inning.
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His big hit came in the seventh inning. With two on and the Giants still trailing by a run, Posey pulled a Matt Belisle offering down the left field line to score two runs, giving the team a lead it would not look back from.
Posey drove in just 13 runs in his first 46 games of the season, but has started to rack up the RBI. In his last seven games, he has driven in 10 runs to be the heavy hitter the Giants need.
3 – Hill’s Milestone
In a season like this, it’s important to find things that are interesting, like milestones. There’s been plenty of firsts this year: Chris Marrero‘s first home run; Steven Okert‘s first win; Slater, Christian Arroyo, and Orlando Calixte’s first everything. On Friday, Aaron Hill completed a much longer-tenured milestone. In the third inning against Ervin Santana, Hill scorched a leadoff triple into right-center field for his 1,500th career hit. But in pretty typical 2017 Giants fashion, Hill was left stranded at third. Got to take the good with the bad, right?