WASHINGTON -- Heliot Ramos needed that.
With one cathartic swing, Ramos took a big step toward breaking out of his early season slump, launching a three-run home run to spark the Giants’ 10-5 series-opening win over the Nationals on Friday night at Nationals Park.
Ramos entered Friday batting only .231 with a .526 OPS and 24 strikeouts over his first 18 games of the year, which prompted the Giants to sit him in favor of the left-handed-hitting Will Brennan in the club’s final two games against the Reds this week.
But Ramos started to look more like himself when he got a chance to return to his starting spot in left field against Nationals right-hander Zack Littell on Friday.
In his first at-bat of the game, Ramos unloaded on a 1-2 splitter from Littell, crushing it 416 feet out to dead center to give the Giants a 3-0 lead in the top of the second. The blast snapped Ramos’ 65 at-bat homerless drought to start the season and kicked off a six-run rally that gave the Giants plenty of cushion behind right-hander Logan Webb.
Drew Gilbert and Casey Schmitt also went deep for San Francisco (8-12), which saw each member of its starting lineup record at least one hit en route to improving to 3-4 on its current road trip through Baltimore, Cincinnati and Washington. The 10 runs were the most the Giants have produced in a single game this season, a welcome sight considering they entered Friday averaging an MLB-low 3.05 runs per game.
Matt Chapman finished 3-for-5 with three RBIs, while rookie catcher Daniel Susac -- who got the start over incumbent Patrick Bailey on Friday -- went 2-for-5 with a double to maintain a robust .524 (11-for-21) batting average through his first nine games of the year.