MILWAUKEE — It was a frustrating evening to be a pitcher Tuesday at American Family Field.
The two starters, Logan Webb and Tobias Myers, had been about as good as it gets dating back to various points on the calendar, but both were out the game by the end of the sixth inning as the Giants and Brewers traded home runs in the opening salvo of their three-game series.
Mike Yastrzemski’s two-run blast to right field in the seventh was the Giants’ third homer of the night — the fifth overall by both sides — and proved to be decisive in a much-needed 5-4 win to keep pace with the Braves (72-60), who maintained their 5½ game advantage for the final wild card.
It was San Francisco’s (67-66) fourth straight one-run game after dropping two of three such contests over the weekend in Seattle.
“They all have a personality of their own, but we were very aware that every night feels like this,” manager Bob Melvin said. ” … I don’t want to say you get immune to them, but you certainly get used to the intensity of every inning, every pitch and knowing that you can’t let down, if you give up a run you have to come back and do it again.
“We’ve kind of formed that during this stretch, yet it would be nice to have a game where we didn’t have to use our best relievers every game.”
Once again, it was Ryan Walker and Tyler Rogers who got the job done over the final two innings, but the Giants needed even more out of their bullpen. They used four relievers behind Webb, who lasted only two batters into the sixth after none of the Giants’ three starters made it beyond the fourth during their weekend series in Seattle.
Webb removed his cap and wiped his brow after his 14th pitch to William Contreras in the first inning landed in foul territory, just beyond the reach of first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr., then put the Brewers designated hitter on-base with his 15th pitch of the plate appearance. He shouted an expletive into his glove that was audible throughout the stadium when he finally returned to the dugout after exhausting 33 pitches to record his first three outs of the night.
The Giants’ workhorse at the top of their rotation understood the circumstances, and his frustration grew with each putaway pitch that didn’t get the job done.
“I wanted to give them as much as I could, unfortunately I just kind of dug myself into a hole in the first inning,” said Webb, who went on to allow four runs on a pair of homers over five-plus frames. “Long at-bats and a long inning. I thought I was going to get through six, but that sixth, I didn’t do very good that inning.”
Even more enraging than losing a batter on the 15th pitch has to be balking a run into prime scoring position, which is how the Giants opened a 1-0 lead in the third inning against Myers, who entered the game with the majors’ lowest ERA since June 1 but allowed three runs for just the second time over that span.
After Grant McCray singled and stole second, Myers was called for a balk when his cleat appeared to get stuck during his delivery. That put McCray in position to score on a groundout from Wade. San Francisco tacked on two more runs against Myers with solo shots from McCray and Matt Chapman.
“It’s funny,” McCray deadpanned. “I was laughing on my way to third, like, ‘I got you.’”
McCray got him even more in the fifth, sending a 422-foot blast midway up the second deck in right field that, immediately following a leaping catch by center fielder Blake Perkins that robbed Thairo Estrada of a go-ahead home run. Instead, it was the Giants’ rookie center fielder who gave them a brief 3-2 advantage in the fifth.
The Giants asked for a crew chief review to see if Perkins trapped Estrada’s ball against the wall on the other side of the outfield fence but the out was upheld.
“I felt like they should’ve gave him the homer, honestly,” McCray said. “When he came back in, I was like, ‘I got you, Papi, I got your back, don’t worry.’”
It required a third homer from Yastrzemski to take the lead for good once both starters had left the game.
After falling behind 0-2 against reliever Joel Payamps in the seventh inning, Yastrzemski laid off two offspeed offerings outside the strike zone, then drove a 2-2 fastball into the right-field seats for a two-run shot that flipped the score to a 5-4 San Francisco advantage.
“You get leads in the game in the game, you’ve got to keep them; that’s the job of the starting pitcher,” Webb said. “I did a bad job of that today, but the boys had my back.”
Webb faced two batters into the sixth and didn’t retire either, departing the game after serving up his second homer and allowing the Brewers to take a 4-3 lead.
It was Webb’s shortest start since July 25 in Los Angeles, also the last time he allowed more than three runs. In five starts since, he owned a 0.96 ERA, the best mark in the majors over that span, and had gone at least seven in four of those outings.
His homerless streak dated back even further to July 20, a league-leading stretch of 43 1/3 innings entering the night, but he served up a pair of gargantuan blasts to Jackson Chourio and Willy Adames. Webb entered the game with one of the lowest home run rates in the majors — his 0.36 HR/9 led baseball entering play — and hadn’t allowed multiple any of his starts this season.
Chourio, the Brewers’ rookie outfielder, took out a piece of the center-field scoreboard with his 449-foot blast that opened a 2-1 lead in the third inning. And Adames squared up his two-run shot in the fifth even harder — at 110.8 mph vs. Chourio’s 109.7 reading — flipping his bat as he watched the ball travel an estimated 435 feet over the Brewers’ bullpen in left-center field.
“His line gets skewed when you give up four hits the entire time you’re out there and two of them end up being two-run homers,” Melvin said. “He pitched well.”
The Giants’ bullpen, meanwhile, answered the call of duty despite taking on a heavy workload in three tight, high-leverage games over the weekend.
Rogers was required to record the final out of the seventh and pitched around a leadoff single in a scoreless eighth, and Walker was prepared to pitch multiple innings if needed, as well. He was warming in the eighth before entering the following inning to record a three-out save for his fourth of the season.
Both relievers already top the league leaderboard in appearances and appeared in two of their three games in Seattle, with Walker working two frames Friday.
“It’s not like we haven’t been playing these games every single day,” Melvin said. “It’s uncomfortable having to use guys one-plus (innings), especially guys that are top of the league in appearances, but when it gets down to a situation like that … look, they’ve been so good. We feel good when they’re in the game and we have a lead. It usually works out for us.”