ST. LOUIS – Looking for a way back into the Wild Card race, the Giants have evidently decided the easiest path back is over the outfield fence. They extended their longest streak of games with a home run since the franchise moved to the Bay to 18 early in Friday’s 8-2 series-opening win over the Cardinals, moving one shy of the franchise record, set in 1947.
Rafael Devers delivered Michael McGreevy’s sixth pitch of the night 416 feet away into the bleachers in right-center to establish an early lead the Giants would not relinquish. He was followed in turn by Willy Adames dropping a 401-foot shot into the vegetation just over the wall in left-center.
It was the fourth time this season San Francisco hitters went back to back, and for the second straight time, it was the duo of Devers and Adames. They also accomplished the feat on Aug. 21 in San Diego.
“It feels really good,” Devers said via interpreter Erwin Higueros. “The same way I feel when things are not going good, I feel bad, but things are going good for me right now.”
“That’s really kind of been what’s ignited us, has been that home run in the first inning,” manager Bob Melvin said. “And then we get one from Willy as well. So it was a really good feeling in the first. We’ve felt it a lot.”
The hit parade did not end with Devers and Adames, though they certainly made their fair share of contributions. In all, the Giants would drum out 18 hits against Cardinals pitching, tying a season high. Jung Hoo Lee tied a career high with four hits, and Patrick Bailey contributed three from the ninth spot in the order. Six of the nine Giants starters recorded multiple hits, and all nine had at least one.
“We go into the game feeling good about our offense, and there’s a reason for it,” Melvin said. “It’s contagious, just like it goes the other way. And right now, offensively, we feel like we’re as good as we’ve been all year.”
Friday marked the fifth consecutive game and sixth of the past seven in which the Giants scored at least eight runs, their most fruitful sustained stretch of the season. It has allowed them to vault above .500 and back into the thick of the Wild Card race, keeping pace with the New York Mets and staying just four games back of the final postseason spot.
In his second career start, Carson Seymour spun a gem for the Giants, lasting a career-high five innings without allowing a hit in any of his first four. He would finish with only a one earned run allowed on two singles, striking out two and walking one en route to his first victory in the big leagues.
“Bob asked me after the fourth if I was good, and I knew I hadn’t given up a hit, either,” Seymour said. “So I was like, ‘Yeah, I feel good.’ I was trying to keep that alive, honestly.”
The goal was met, along with an enthusiastic and condiment-laced spin through the visiting clubhouse showers, in celebration of a significant career milestone.
That milestone was never seriously challenged by anything other than his own ability to last through five innings after the top of the first. In contrast to the Giants’ onslaught, the Cardinals were held in check by Matt Gage and Tristan Beck after Seymour. Beck pitched the final three innings to record his first save of 2025.
On Saturday, the Giants will look to tie a record that had escaped Devers’ notice until after the victory, though he assessed the streak of power as, “something very positive, and it’s something that should make us all proud.”
Proud though he may be, Devers shrugged off any suggestion that he might be due extra gratitude from his pitching staff for his early power provision. That is, by his assessment, the way things ought to be, and he doesn’t need to hear it from elsewhere in the dugout to know that it’s appreciated.
“They don’t have to come thank me for that, because that’s my job,” he said. “That’s my job that I’m supposed to do in every at-bat.”
That might be a pace that’s hard to maintain, but with the way the Giants have hit over the last few weeks, nothing seems out of reach.
