SAN FRANCISCO – About midway through the last game of a six-game homestand Wednesday, the Giants seemed primed to fade into oblivion.
Instead, the Giants rallied from a five-run deficit to the delight of an announced crowd of 35,186 at Oracle Park to eventually tie the game in the eighth inning and win it 8-6 in the 10th. Mike Yastrzemski won it with a two-run home run in the 10th against Emilio Pagan.
Wilmer Flores tied the game with a solo home run leading off the sixth inning against Tony Santillan, a game in which the Giants scored one in the fourth inning and four in the sixth after losing the two previous games to the Reds by scores of 1-0 and 2-0.
It was the fifth home for Flores, one more than he had all of last season.
Erik Miller (1-0) was the winning pitcher for the Giants, pitching a scoreless 10th. The Giants are 9-3, with the Reds falling to 5-8.
Trailing by five runs, the Giants rallied within 6-5 in the sixth with one run scoring on a wild pitch and three more coming in on four consecutive two-out hits — a double by Yastrzemski, a single by Wilmer Flores, a triple by Patrick Bailey and a single by Tyler Fitzgerald.
The Giants threatened in the seventh when Jung Hoo Lee doubled to right, his third hit of the game. Matt Chapman followed with a lineout to right and Heliot Ramos sent a drive to deep center that was caught moved Lee to third. He stayed there when Tony Santillan got Yastrzemski on a foul pop to third.
Cincinnati starter Nick Martinez was replaced by Taylor Rogers before Bailey’s triple, and he finished giving up four earned runs in 5 1/3 innings.
Giants starter Justin Verlander had one bad inning in the third when the Reds scored five times but ended up pitching into the sixth, giving up five hits with three walks and nine strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.
In the first two innings, the 42-year-old right-hander looked like the Verlander of old, rather than an old Verlander. He threw 20 pitches, 18 of them strikes, and struck out the side in the second. It was a welcome sight, coming as it did after a 2 1/3-inning struggle against Seattle in which he gave up three earned runs and threw 65 pitches.
Things changed dramatically in the third. No. 8 hitter Jake Fraley walked, and Austin Wynns drove a single past Chapman at third base. Chapman had his hand checked after scraping it on the dirt and stayed in the game.
TJ Friedl, the five-year veteran from Pleasanton’s Foothill High, doubled off the right field fence for the first Cincinnati run. After Santiago Espinal’s infield single, Elly De La Cruz doubled down the right field line on a bouncer that ticked off the glove of leaping first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr. and Cincinnati led 3-0.
Gavin Lux was next, and with the infield in, Lux drove a single just under the glove of Fitzgerald at second base. It was scored a hit, and drove in two more runs for a 5-0 Reds lead.
Verlander then struck out Will Benson and got Spencer Steer on a popup. But by then he’d faced eight batters, given up five hits, five runs and thrown 34 pitches in the inning.
The Giants broke an 18-inning scoreless streak in the fourth on Lee’s triple to right with no outs. It brought home Willy Adames, who walked.
Lee, at third with no outs, never scored. Chapman popped out and Ramos hit a chopper to the left of Martinez, the pitcher. Martinez spun and threw to Wynns at the plate to cut down Lee for the second out, and Yastrzemski lined to De La Cruz at short to end the inning.
It was a promising start to the fifth for the Giants when Flores singled to right and was doubled to third by Bailey with no outs. Fitzgerald was next, and he grounded solidly to shortstop. De La Cruz was playing deep, but the ball was hit hard enough he had plenty of time to throw home and cut down Flores at the plate.
Martinez then struck out Wade and retired Adames on a pop-up to second and the Giants didn’t score.
The Reds added an unearned run in the fifth inning on a bases-loaded walk by Lou Trivino against Wynns. Trivino came in with the bases loaded and two outs against Verlander, who had walked two in the inning. The inning was extended by an errant flip by Adames at short for a would-be out at second to Fitzgerald, with the toss pulling Fitzgerald just far enough off the base for the runner to slide in safely.