Rookie Bryce Eldridge launched the home team’s first home run into the San Francisco Bay this season, Casey Schmitt and Willy Adames added traditional homers into the bleachers and the San Francisco Giants captured an 8-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies in the opener of a four-game series Thursday night.
Promoted earlier in the day from Triple-A Sacramento, Carson Whisenhunt (2-0) limited the Rockies to three hits and two runs over 5 2/3 innings to record his second win of the season in as many starts.
The Rockies bounced back from Schmitt’s first-inning solo shot, his 18th, with a two-run homer by Willi Castro, his seventh, in the fourth.
But that’s the only scoring the visitors would manage against Whisenhunt, who was pulled with two outs and one aboard in the sixth. The left-hander walked four and struck out four.
Eldridge’s blast, his eighth, tied the game in the fourth, setting the stage for a two-run fifth that gave the Giants the lead for good.
The “Splash Hit” over the high wall and bleachers in right field at Oracle Park was the first of his career and the first by a Giants hitter since Rafael Devers took Sonny Gray into the water last September.
Singles by Drew Cavanaugh and Heliot Ramos got the decisive fifth inning going for the Giants. Luis Arraez gave the hosts the lead with an RBI double, and Devers made it 4-2 with a run-scoring single.
Rockies starter Ryan Feltner (3-3), who had beaten the Giants in two earlier starts this season, was pulled one batter later, charged with four runs on six hits in 4 1/3 innings. He walked four and struck out three.
The Giants blew the game open with a four-run eighth that included Adames’ 15th homer, a two-run shot. Schmitt and Devers had RBI doubles earlier in the inning.
JT Brubaker, Erik Miller and Caleb Kilian picked up Whisenhunt with 3 1/3 innings of shutout relief.
Eldridge, Schmitt, Devers, Cavanaugh and Arraez had two hits apiece for the Giants, who snapped a two-game losing streak.
Having already won a pair of home series over the Giants this season, the Rockies were out-hit 13-5.
–Field Level Media
