DENVER -- Giants rookie Bryce Eldridge made quite the bang on the Fourth of July.
The 21-year-old slugger hammered a 106.8 mph, 458-foot solo blast in the top of the third inning to help power the Giants’ 6-4 win over the Rockies on Saturday night at Coors Field.
Eldridge’s home run was the longest by a Giants hitter this year, surpassing his own 453-foot bomb on May 31, which also came here in the Mile High City. Eldridge’s latest moonshot was particularly impressive considering that it came on a 76 mph changeup from Rockies left-hander Sean Sullivan and landed in the upper deck in right-center field, extending the Giants’ lead to 6-3.
Watching the ball fly in the Denver altitude is certainly a welcome sight for Eldridge, who has also seen a couple of deep drives die at the warning track at the notoriously pitcher-friendly Oracle Park this year.
“It’s a good place to hit,” Eldridge said. “I think the last time I came here, I was kind of scuffling a little bit at the plate. I kind of snapped out of it here. I feel like that’s starting to happen here, too, this time around. I see the ball here well. Just some sort of comfort that I feel being here.”
Eldridge entered Saturday only 8-for-48 (.167) over his last 13 games, but he got back on track by going 2-for-4 with a pair of RBIs on Saturday. He also delivered a two-out RBI double to cap the Giants’ four-run rally against Sullivan in the first inning, providing some early run support for left-hander Robbie Ray, who earned the win after holding the Rockies to three runs over six innings.
“I think the biggest thing is just seeing [Eldridge] get back into a comfort zone,” manager Tony Vitello said. “There’s growing pains and working through things, but he still looks like the guy he did when he first came up. He looks really comfortable in the box.”
The Giants pounded out 14 hits Saturday, half of which were doubles. Newly minted All-Star Luis Arraez led the way with three hits, bumping his batting average to .330, second in the Majors behind the Marlins’ Otto Lopez (.341).
Ray took the mound with a 4-0 lead in the bottom of the first, though he took a spill when he tripped over first base while covering the bag on a 3-1 groundout from Kyle Karros. He stayed in the game, but he got further dinged up when he allowed Colorado to pull within one on Cole Carrigg’s three-run homer to left field. Still, the 34-year-old veteran managed to put up zeros the rest of the way, improving to 5-0 with a 1.85 ERA over his last six starts.
“I felt really good,” Ray said. “I felt like I was mixing all my pitches really well. I know there was just that one mistake, and it wasn’t even the homer that was the mistake. It was the walk that happened before that. That’s the one thing that you talk about that you can’t do here is walk guys. That’s probably the only thing that I’m most frustrated about. But overall, I felt like after the first inning, I was able to lock in and keep us in it.”
Arraez extended the Giants’ lead to 5-3 with an RBI single in the second before Eldridge tacked on another insurance run with his seventh home run of the year in the third.
The Giants also got some stellar work on the defensive end, with Rafael Devers making a couple of impressive diving stops at first base. Casey Schmitt added his own highlight-reel play at third in the bottom of the eighth, when he ranged into foul territory to backhand a grounder from Tyler Freeman and then fired an incredible throw to first base to secure the final out of the inning.
“When [Schmitt] throws it, you almost don’t take him seriously based off the arm angle and him flipping it over there, but it couldn’t have been more accurate,” Vitello said. “I know we had a good dig over there at first base tonight, too, but the play in particular … was right on the money.”
Left-hander Sam Hentges and right-hander Dylan Smith combined to work two scoreless innings behind Ray to turn a three-run lead over to closer Caleb Kilian in the bottom of the ninth. Kilian surrendered a two-out RBI single to TJ Rumfield, but struck out Troy Johnston swinging to end the game and convert his eighth save of the year.