SF Giants: Belt, Ruggiano power Giants to 3-1 victory over Reds

The SF Giants knocked off the Reds for the second straight game thanks to a few homers, and stellar pitching.

After a seventeen inning game the day before, the SF Giants, thanks to how the season had gone so far, were likely expected to lay an egg. But, Brandon Belt stepped up in the first inning and sent one into the cove, and relatively lit a fire under them.

In the next inning, Justin Ruggiano hit another long, solo, homer and from there, the Giants never looked back.

Matt Moore was good. OK. Good is an understatement. Matt Moore was awesome. Really awesome. Moore went 7.1 innings, striking out seven. He walked three, and allowed eight hits.

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He probably shouldn’t have come back out in the eighth. But, after such a long game, where the bullpen went a total of nine innings, the Giants absolutely needed a starter to go deep and he delivered.

The Giants used Hunter Strickland and Derek Law for .2, and one inning, respectively. Only one runner was surrendered, and they took care of the Reds to finish the game off. The Giants win now puts them in a tie with the San Diego Padres for the worst record in baseball, instead of owning it themselves. They’re still nine games out of the division lead, and nine games under .500.

Three Takeaways:

1. Matt Moore is miles better at home than on the road. He has four starts at home, and four on the road. At home, he’s 2-1 with a 2.57 ERA, and a 1.14 WHIP. On the road, he’s 0-3 with a 10.50 ERA and a 2.17 WHIP. Opponents are hitting .370 against him on the road, but just a meager .217 at home. If he can get a few really good road starts together, you’ll see the pitcher the Giants thought they were getting.
2. Brandon Belt is starting to come back around. Belt has been the ire of plenty of fans peril recently. With the whole “he strikes out so much!” thing wearing thin over the last few years. Since people were complaining about having 40 strikeouts on Tuesday, he’s only struck out three times since! Granted, he only has three hits as well, and a few walks, giving him only a .200 batting average. But, the contact is there, strikeouts are down, hopefully the hits start falling.
3. The Giants won a game without Buster Posey! The Giants will have played half, well, maybe even longer considering they practically played an extra game on Friday/Saturday, they played half of this series without Buster Posey, and so far are actually winning the series (*Knocks on wood*). I don’t have any stats on that, because, yeah. I don’t know what to say about that, other than it’s good.

Next: Should the Giants be sellers at the deadline?

The Giants and Reds face off for the final time in 2017 (unless somehow they meet in the playoffs) Today, at 1:15 pm. Jeff Samardzija and Tim Adelman will take the hill. You can watch on NBCSBA, or listen in on KNBR 680.