SAN FRANCISCO -- Marlins second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. put his hand on his hip and stared back in disbelief.
Chisholm smoked a 101.3 mph comebacker in the top of the sixth inning, but he was robbed by Giants left-hander Alex Wood, who made a quick snag and immediately held up the ball as evidence of his web gem.
“The line drive catch, I was like, 'Oh my goodness, I can't believe you just caught this ball. Like you just took that hit away,’” Chisholm said afterward. “Never seen a pitcher take away a hit from me, so I was just really upset. I was like, 'Why? Why? Like why are you here? Like get out of the way after you throw the ball.'"
The scene served as a snapshot of the way Wood confounded hitters on Friday night, when he fired seven innings of one-run ball to lead the Giants to a 5-3 win over the Marlins at Oracle Park.
In his second start since returning from the injured list, Wood gave up only a leadoff home run to Chisholm in the first inning before settling in to retire 21 of the final 22 batters he faced. The only other hitter to reach base against Wood was Garrett Cooper, who worked a two-out walk in the fourth.
“I feel like at this point I’ve had all kinds of nights throughout the course of my career,” Wood said. “I didn’t feel great early with my changeup and my fastball command those first two innings, but I feel like I really settled in and started clipping some really good changeups and commanding my fastball. The rest was history from there. I felt great tonight the further I got into the game, and it was a good win for us.”
The Giants are now 7-1 at Oracle Park and 13-7 on the season, tied with the crossbay A’s for the second-best record in the Majors.
“I think there’s confidence right now,” said Buster Posey, who became the first player in the Giants’ 139-year history to catch 1,000 games on Friday. “It’s a good feeling when you come to the ballpark. Obviously, it’s early. It’s very early, but I think we feel like when we show up each day, we’ve got a good chance to win. I think offensively we feel like we haven’t really hit our stride yet. Hopefully as the season goes along we can kind of get in that groove and ride it for a while.”
The success of the Giants has centered around their formidable pitching staff, which ranks second in the Majors with a 2.83 ERA. Wood missed the first two weeks of the regular season after undergoing an ablation procedure to treat stiffness in his lower back, but he’s fit right in since slotting into the starting rotation last week.
Wood struck out the side in the second and finished his night with seven punchouts, five of which came on his nasty slider. The 30-year-old veteran used his slider 28.7% of the time last year, but he’s leaned more heavily on the pitch in his first two starts of the 2021 season, both of which have come against Miami. Thirty-eight of his 97 pitches (39%) on Friday were sliders, resulting in 10 of his 14 whiffs.
Wood said he thought his slider played well against the Marlins’ lineup and noted that he made some adjustments during Spring Training to tweak the overall profile of the pitch.
“At least based off the metrics of my first outing, it’s playing a little bit more like a mini-curveball,” Wood said. “It’s a unique pitch, and it’s been really good so far. It’s not so much the swing-and-misses or the strikeouts with my slider. It’s the ones I’ll throw in-zone that I’m getting ground balls on. That’s a really good sign for me moving forward, that it’s a sustainable pitch, and a pitch that’s going to be a real weapon for me over the course of the season.”
Mike Yastrzemski erased the Giants’ early one-run deficit by crushing a two-run home run to the opposite field off Marlins right-hander Sandy Alcantara in the third. After a walk from leadoff man Tommy La Stella, Yastrzemski launched a first-pitch sinker that landed on top of the left-field wall for his third home run of the year.
Yastrzemski went 3-for-28 (.107) over his first eight games, but he’s starting to heat up and is now 12-for-45 (.267) with two home runs, five doubles and one triple over his last 12 games.
“I don’t think he’s off to his best start,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “I think that’s obvious. But he’s certainly swinging the bat better of late, and it’s starting to look more natural in the batter’s box. Never for one second do we have any concern or worry that he’s [not] going to be an excellent offensive player like he has been for more than a calendar year at the Major League level.”
The Giants later created more separation with a three-run rally in the seventh.
Kapler opted to have Mauricio Dubón pinch-hit for Wood, and the move paid off after Dubón delivered a leadoff double to left field off Marlins reliever Adam Cimber. Dubón later came around to score on an RBI single by Wilmer Flores, who started at third base in place of the injured Evan Longoria on Friday.
Brandon Belt, who returned to the lineup after missing one game with quad tightness, followed with a two-run single to extend the Giants’ lead to 4-1. Darin Ruf capped the big inning with a sacrifice fly to right field.