Rafael Devers spent Friday night at Oracle Park doing the thing the Giants traded for him to do — twice.
He opened the scoring with a two-run opposite-field homer in the first inning, his 21st of the season. Then, with the game tied 6-6 in the bottom of the 10th, he launched a deep fly off reliever Chase Silseth that bounced on the warning track in left and caromed into the stands for a walk-off ground-rule double, giving San Francisco a 7-6 win over the Los Angeles Angels and snapping a five-game losing streak.
The Giants should have won this one comfortably. They didn’t, which is apparently the only way this team knows how to operate.
Logan Webb took the mound with a 5-1 lead by the third inning — built on Devers’ first-inning blast and Casey Schmitt’s three-run homer that immediately followed an intentional walk to Devers. Angels manager Kurt Suzuki ordered the free pass with a 2-0 count, and Schmitt made him pay with a 412-foot, 105.9-mph missile. Both home runs came off Angels starter Grayson Rodriguez.
Webb allowed four runs over six innings — three of them in the fifth, when Tyler Heineman laced a two-run triple and Mike Trout followed with a sacrifice fly to cut the deficit to 5-4. The Giants tacked on an insurance run in the seventh thanks to some speed: Grant McCray entered as a pinch-runner, stole second, advanced on a wild pitch, and scored on Daniel Susac’s sacrifice fly to make it 6-4.
That cushion lasted exactly one inning. Vaughn Grissom launched a two-run homer off reliever Jason Foley in the eighth, knotting the game at 6 and denying Webb his first win in nearly a month.
The 10th is where it got interesting — and where McCray turned from footnote to fulcrum. After catching a fly ball in the top of the frame, he unleashed a throw to third base that cut down Grissom for an inning-ending double play, extinguishing the Angels’ automatic-runner threat before it could materialize.
In the bottom half, pinch-runner Jesus Rodriguez started at second and moved to third on Luis Arraez’s soft single to left. Heliot Ramos grounded out. Bryce Eldridge walked to load the bases. Devers stepped in against Silseth (3-2) and drove a ball deep to left that hit the warning track and bounced into the stands — a ground-rule double that plated the winning run. Luis Arraez, the runner on second, never touched home, costing Devers an RBI on the final line. The scoreboard read 7-6 regardless.
Caleb Kilian (3-6) retired three batters for the win. Arraez and Drew Gilbert each had two hits for San Francisco. Bryce Eldridge doubled, walked, and scored twice.
Devers and Schmitt are now tied at 21 home runs apiece on the season.
The Giants continue the series Saturday afternoon with left-hander Robbie Ray (8-6, 3.33 ERA) facing Angels right-hander Ryan Johnson (2-4, 6.10 ERA).
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