The San Francisco giants go for their first three-game series in over a month when they take last place Colorado Rockies again on Sunday evening.
The Giants (72-70) have taken hits from 11 different players in 9-8 and 9-1 wins in the first two games of the series. Five different players have hit home runs.
The winning streak follows a six-game skid that saw the Giants three teams out of the National League’s final wild card spot.
The two wins allowed them to overtake one team – the Cincinnati Reds – and another win on Sunday, combined with a Miami loss in Philadelphia, would tie San Francisco with the Marlins for first team out honors.
The Giants will hand the ball to right-hander Keaton Winn (0-2, 3.33) for the series finale.
Winn has made six appearances as Giants rookie this season, two as a starter. He pitched a total of 10 innings in those starts, suffering both of his losses after allowing five runs.
The 25-year-old has never had to deal with the Rockies.
Winn can only hope for the kind of support the Giants offered starters Kyle Harrison and Logan Webb in the first two games of the series. In Winn’s first two starts, San Francisco scored a total of one run.
After watching his club struggle to score a total of 14 runs during their six-match skid leading to the homestand, Giants Manager Gabe Kapler has witnessed an embarrassment of riches as a result of an offense that is almost as powerful at the bottom as it is at the top.
San Francisco’s eighth and ninth hitters combined for six hits, five runs and four RBIs in the two wins, while its top two hitters had 11 hits, five runs and eight RBIs.
Luis Matos, who batted leadoff Friday and ninth Saturday, and Mike Yastrzemski, who came off the bench Friday before leaving Saturday, have enjoyed the best of both worlds.
“We led to this,” Kapler said. “This is a result of having a more full bench. The depth isn’t just in the lineup, it’s been the bench.”
After dropping 15 of their past 18 games, the Rockies (51-90) will be hoping right-hander Peter Lambert (3-6, 5.03) ends the team’s six-game trip on a positive note. The 26-year-old has not won any of his past three starts, in which Colorado combined for just six runs.
The last time he faced the Giantson June 6, Lambert came in relief and gave up three runs on three hits and four walks in 1 1/3 innings of a 10-4 home loss.
Lambert has confronted him Giants four times in his career, three times as a starter, pitching to a 5.82 ERA while getting no decisions.
Now that his team has suffered its 90th defeat on Saturday, with 100 in sight, Rockies rookie Nolan Jones has taken time during the series to look ahead to better days.
“One day I want that game to be a trip to the World Series,” Jones said of a ninth-inning at-bat against Giants closer Camilo Doval on Friday. “I think any situation we get into, especially on the road for younger guys, is a good learning situation.”
— Field-level media