CINCINNATI -- After losing four straight to sink a season-high six games below .500, the Giants were in dire need of a stopper on Thursday afternoon.
Enter Landen Roupp, who fired six innings of one-hit ball to help San Francisco shut out Cincinnati, 3-0, and avoid a three-game series sweep at Great American Ball Park.
Roupp held the Reds hitless through his first five innings before giving up a leadoff single to P.J. Higgins in the sixth. TJ Friedl then reached on a hit-by-pitch to put a pair of runners on with none out, but Roupp managed to escape the jam by striking out Matt McClain swinging on a curveball and coaxing a 4-6-3 inning-ending double play from Elly De La Cruz to preserve a scoreless tie.
The Giants recorded only two hits over six innings against Reds flamethrower Chase Burns, but they finally managed to break the stalemate in the seventh, when Luis Arraez reached on a fielding error by De La Cruz and scored from first on a two-out RBI double from Matt Chapman to give San Francisco its first lead of the series.
Jung Hoo Lee followed with an RBI single to left field to make it 2-0, and he later came home on another base hit by Casey Schmitt to cap a three-run rally.
Tensions between both sides flared in the top of the eighth after Reds reliever Connor Phillips hit Willy Adames on the left leg with an 0-2 fastball. Adames tossed his bat in frustration and briefly glared at Phillips, who was promptly ejected by home-plate umpire Junior Valentine. Several Giants players also cleared the benches.
When Giants reliever Erik Miller struck out Sal Stewart to end the game, tempers flared again, with Miller and Stewart yelling at each other as players from both benches spilled onto the field.
Roupp also drilled Spencer Steer in the ribs with a first-pitch fastball -- the only four-seamer he threw in his 87-pitch gem -- in the second, which may have been related to Steer’s kerfuffle with Giants right-hander JT Brubaker on Wednesday night.