Giants get best of Bumgarner with homers

Madison Bumgarner returned to Oracle Park on Saturday without the usual fanfare that would have accompanied a typical homecoming for a player of his stature.

There were no fans in the stands to give him a warm welcome back to the city that saw him develop into a postseason legend and a three-time World Series champion. There was no Buster Posey or Brandon Crawford in the starting lineup, minimizing the extent of the nostalgia for both sides.

Instead, it was largely business as usual, with the Giants coming out on top in their first matchup against their former ace. Evan Longoria and Darin Ruf crushed back-to-back home runs off Bumgarner in the second inning to propel the Giants to a 4-3 win over the D-backs, evening their four-game series at Oracle Park.

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“It's always strange when you face somebody who you've played with for multiple years,” Longoria said. “I obviously have a ton of respect for Madison. I loved watching him pitch as a teammate. I loved his competitive spirit and just watching his drive to be better every time he went out there. It's always different when you face a guy on the other side, but I think at the end of the day, he's going out there trying to beat us, and same thing from our side.”

Longoria tied the game, 1-1, by hammering a cutter from Bumgarner out to left field for his fifth home run of the season. Ruf followed with a 453-foot shot to straightaway center field that ranked as the third-longest homer Bumgarner has allowed since Statcast began tracking in 2015.

“I made more than one mistake, but there's one that cost me to Longoria,” Bumgarner said. “I threw it just about where I wanted to. I was debating whether to throw that cutter up-and-in or down-and-in. Obviously, now looking back, I should have went with the down-and-in option. The pitch to Ruf, you’ve just got to tip your cap to him.”

Bumgarner lasted four innings and threw 72 pitches in his first start since returning from a back strain. He tried to downplay his return to San Francisco on Friday, though he acknowledged that it was easier to brush aside any potential emotions while pitching in an empty ballpark.

“I try to do that anyway, as you know,” Bumgarner said. “I still feel like I would have done that if people were allowed to come to the games, but there’s no doubt it would have been harder. It would have been a little different.”

The Giants extended their lead in the sixth with back-to-back RBI triples from Joey Bart and Mauricio Dubón. It marked the first time in San Francisco history that two Giants teammates hit their first career triples in consecutive fashion.

Did Bart envision that he would record his first career triple before his first home run?

“No, I wouldn't think so,” the 23-year-old catcher said. “But I'll take what I can. Hopefully some homers are coming soon. I've just been working on trying to be more competitive out there and putting together really good at-bats, so that's what my focus is going to be. But it would definitely be nice to get one out there to get it out of the way.”

Trevor Cahill, who departed his last start with left hip discomfort, didn’t look particularly sharp and was pulled after giving up one run on two hits over 2 2/3 innings. Manager Gabe Kapler aggressively leaned on his bullpen Saturday, using seven relievers to get through the rest of the game to help the Giants improve to 19-21 with two-thirds of the regular season in the books.

The D-backs pulled within one after Daulton Varsho homered into McCovey Cove in the seventh and Eduardo Escobar delivered an RBI single in the eighth, but lefty Sam Selman recorded a huge inning-ending strikeout of Josh Rojas to strand a pair of baserunners and leave the Giants’ one-run lead intact. Veteran Tony Watson took over in the ninth and pitched a scoreless inning to earn his first save since 2017.

“I think we're going to be looking to win tonight's game and figuring out tomorrow tomorrow,” Kapler said. “It’s not that we don't have to be cognizant of the upcoming games. It's not that we don't have to be cognizant of how we're going to be performing in a week or 10 days from now. But certainly, every game is really big at this point. We'll start to treat them with that level of urgency. I think you're just seeing us manage games a little bit more aggressively right now.”