SAN FRANCISCO – With several key pieces settling back into the lineup, the Giants’ offense finally appears to be turning a corner.
One day after erupting for a season-high 13 runs, the Giants continued to flash some much-needed firepower, with LaMonte Wade Jr. and Mike Yastrzemski each homering in a 4-3 comeback win over the Cardinals on Mother’s Day at Oracle Park.
By winning back-to-back games for the first time this month, the Giants secured a split of their four-game series against St. Louis, improving to 16-12 on the season.
Yastrzemski delivered the decisive blow, launching his fifth career splash hit off lefty reliever Génesis Cabrera to snap a 3-3 tie in the sixth inning.
The long ball was central to the Giants’ success in 2021, when they led the National League with 241 home runs while winning a franchise-record 107 games, and they’ve begun to reclaim that offensive identity following the return of hitters like Yastrzemski and Wade, who were both activated off the injured list within the last week.
The Giants are now 12-4 when they go deep this year, compared to 4-8 when they’re held homerless. They also drew seven walks on Sunday and didn’t strike out until Joc Pederson went down swinging against Giovanny Gallegos in the Giants’ final at-bat in the eighth inning.
“I thought our at-bat quality was excellent up and down the lineup,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “Obviously, Yaz and LaMonte Wade had big hits, but there were plenty of grindy at-bats around supporting them. It sort of seems like the last couple of days, we’ve been more like ourselves from a brand perspective and an at-bat quality perspective. It feels good.”
Cardinals rookie Juan Yepez’s two-run shot put the Giants in a 2-0 hole in the second, but Wade -- summoning his trademark late-night heroics in the afternoon -- quickly erased the deficit with his first home run of the season in the bottom half of the inning.
Wade, playing in only his third game after missing the first month of the season with a left knee injury, crushed a misplaced slider from St. Louis right-hander Dakota Hudson out to center field for a 436-foot blast that ranked as the Giants’ second-longest home run of the year.
“I was really going up there just trying to put something hard in play,” Wade said. “I was looking to try and get something out over the plate. He’s really good when he gets in on your hands as a lefty, so I wanted to push him out over the plate. I was able to get a pitch to handle, and I was able to do something good with that.”
Yastrzemski followed with a sacrifice fly to give the Giants their first lead of the afternoon, but the Cardinals came back to tie the game at 3 after left fielder Luis González misplayed a fly ball that fell for a ground-ball double and led to an RBI groundout in the sixth.
Still, Yastrzemski managed to put the Giants ahead for good by winning his left-on-left matchup with Cabrera, launching a 2-0 fastball into McCovey Cove to make it 4-3 and collect his second home run of the year. Yastrzemski, who was activated off the COVID-19 IL on Wednesday, is now 13-for-31 (.419) over his last nine games dating to April 20.
“When Yaz’s swing is on point -- and he’s been on time quite a bit so far this season, very close to being kind of Yaz circa 2020 -- he can elevate the ball to the pull-side with the best of them,” Kapler said.
Yastrzemski posted reverse-splits over his first two seasons in the Majors, but he struggled to replicate those results last year, when he recorded a .513 OPS against lefties, down from .997 in 2020. Sunday marked a step in the right direction for Yastrzemski, who is looking to rebound following his down year in 2021.
“It’s something that I’ve been focusing on,” Yastrzemski said. “But I’m just trying to have a good at-bat. It’s not something that I’m thinking about in the moment. Now that I can take a second and look back at it, I’m obviously happy about how that went. But there are too many at-bats in the season to really try to do too much in these ones. If I try to do too much in that at-bat, then I could be throwing it away, so I’m just trying to take advantage of the opportunities.”
Jakob Junis gave up two runs on three hits over five innings in his third appearance and first start of the year for the Giants, who called him up from Triple-A Sacramento on Sunday to fill in for the injured Anthony DeSclafani. Junis has yielded only two runs and struck out 15 over 15 innings in three outings this year, earning the chance to stay in the rotation for the time being.
“We see him as a member of our rotation,” Kapler said. “It doesn’t mean it’s always going to be that way, but as of right now, there’s no reason he can’t make another start for us coming up here real soon.”