SAN FRANCISCO — The first hit of Grant McCray’s major league career won’t be remembered for how hard it was hit or how far it traveled. The bunt single failed to clear the ground in front of home base and would have been more accurately measured in inches than the two feet estimated by Statcast.
McCray’s first career hit helped the Giants score the only run they needed on Thursday afternoon thanks to Logan Webb, but his second was arguably even more satisfying.
The 23-year-old center fielder hit the first home run of his career and the second for the Giants in the sixth inning to extend the Giants’ lead in an eventual 6-0 victory, avoiding a four-game series loss to the Braves for the first time since 1960, six years before their move to Atlanta.
“I’m still overwhelmed with excitement, man,” said McCray, who finished 2-for-3 with a walk and two RBIs in his second major league game. “First big league hit, first big league RBI, did a job for my team and got the scoring going. I can’t be more thankful for that.”
McCray reached base three times to help the Giants end a four-game losing streak and get their record back to .500 (62-62). Still, after losing the first three games of the series, they finished the day further behind the National League’s final wild-card spot — 3½ games behind Atlanta — than they began the series.
“We really needed to win,” said manager Bob Melvin, who saw good chances for the Giants when he handed the ball to Webb. “These are the guys you want on the mound in games like this, and he came as promised.”
As he left the mound, a standing ovation rang out from the 29,319 fans, who came one out short of completing eight scoreless innings. Webb pitched with the determination of an ace trying to single-handedly lead his team to victory and, ultimately, into October. He struck out seven players, walked one and allowed four hits in 7⅔ scoreless innings.
The only trouble Webb got into came in the fourth inning and was hardly of his own making. He faced the NL’s second-best power hitter this season, Marcell Ozuna, with runners on first and second base and no outs after Casey Schmitt botched Matt Chapman’s throw on a potential double-play grounder.
Webb raised his arms in disbelief and cursed when the umpires ruled that Schmitt had not secured the ball sufficiently to take the lead runner out of the game. But just two batters later, he was out of the inning after carefully attacking Ozuna and Matt Olson with 15 pitches – not one above the belt. Ozuna took a knee-high sinker for strike three, and Olson threw the ninth pitch of his at-bat – a changeup below the strike zone – directly to Mark Canha, who stepped on first base and hit an unassisted double play.
“I don’t know how that didn’t get overturned,” Webb said. “I thought they should have called him out from the start. I think I used that to throw out the batters. There were some really good batters coming in, so I just tried to get a ground ball and go from there.”
The Giants hadn’t scored more than four runs in any of their first six home games, but they knew that if they could score just one run, it might be enough given Webb’s recent dominance. He lowered his ERA to a minuscule 0.61 (2 ER, 29⅓ IP) in his last four starts.
After loading the bases to start the second inning against Max Fried and striking out Curt Casali, allowing their rookie No. 9 batter to step in with one out, Melvin was determined to get at least one run out of the situation. He asked McCray to throw a bunt that dribbled so close to home plate that Jerar Encarnacion would have been forced out if Travis d’Arnaud had been able to hold onto Fried’s flip but instead took a 1-0 lead.
Melvin, who has been a manager for 21 years, couldn’t remember the last time he had called for a bunt with the bases loaded.
“That doesn’t happen very often,” he said. “Everything that happened, and you have a guy that can handle the bat and bunt like that … we’ve been in that situation many times and not scored. So we had to try something different.”
McCray worked a four-pitch walk in his second at-bat, then showed the raw power that led to 53 home runs in 437 minor league games in the sixth inning. After Schmitt hit a two-run shot that extended the Giants’ lead to 4-0, McCray made it 5-0 two batters later with a 414-foot solo shot into the visitors’ bullpen.
The speedy young outfielder had already made it halfway to second base before he slowed to a trot, clapped his hands in jubilation and, as he crossed home plate, formed a heart with his hands and held it up to his family in the stands behind the first base dugout.
“Honestly, I just blacked out,” McCray said. “I came in second and just thought, ‘This is serious now.’ I got it over with. I was just overwhelmed with excitement.”
The home run guaranteed that he would have more on the back of his baseball cards than his father Rodney, who appeared in 67 games without a home run.
“I already told him,” McCray said with a smile. “I thought to myself, ‘You haven’t hit a home run in the major leagues, I have!'”
Next
After an off day on Friday – their first in 14 days – the Giants head over the Bay Bridge for their final series at the Oakland Coliseum. RHP Hayden Birdsong (3-2, 5.40) is scheduled to face RHP Osvaldo Bido (3-3, 3.92) on Saturday (16:07) before LHP Blake Snell (2-3, 3.91) and LHP JP Sears (10-8, 4.32) will face each other in their final game on Sunday afternoon.
Originally published:
