SF Giants cruise to three-game winning streak into break

The first three games of the SF Giants series with the Milwaukee Brewers hit on a range of different ways to win the ballgame. In the first, the game went to extra innings with Milwaukee claiming victory. The Giants took the second on Mike Yastrzemski's walk-off grand slam, which the franchise hadn't seen in almost 50 years. San Francisco also took the third game, but via a bases-loaded balk scoring the go-ahead run in the eighth.

Sunday afternoon, the Giants finished up their time before the All-Star break with an impressive win, going out to a quick six-run lead and cruising to a 9-5 victory. The win puts the Orange and Black on a three-game winning streak, and they took the four-game set over the NL Central leaders, three games to one.

Logan Webb, one of the most notable snubs from the NL All-Star team, took the ball and allowed a solo home run in the first inning.

The offense got that run back in the bottom of the first as Austin Slater doubled, moved to third on a wild pitch and scored on a Wilmer Flores sacrifice fly. The Giants took the lead in the second when Yastrzemski scored on a two-out Brandon Belt single after leading off with a double off the left-field wall and scampering to third on an error.

SF Giants put up five-spot in third inning

San Francisco broke the game open in the third. Two singles and a Joc Pederson double scored a run, but the next two hitters grounded out. Joey Bart then got lucky with a slow ground ball that was double-clutched by the third baseman; the Giants catcher beat it out to score Evan Longoria. Up next, Lamonte Wade Jr. got ahold of a 1-1 breaking ball and sent it into McCovey Cove on the fly, making it a five-run outburst and 7-1 lead.

Both teams were quiet for a few innings, until Belt launched a two-run shot in the sixth to make it 9-1.

Webb came out for the seventh and immediately walked Andrew McCutchen, then was removed for Jakob Junis, just activated from the injured list. After a great start to the season before suffering his injury, Junis struggled in his return. He allowed a one-out single then double to score two, and in the eighth he gave up a two-run home run.

Just in case Milwaukee had designs on replicating the Giants' comeback from two days prior, San Francisco sent closer Camilo Doval to the mound in the ninth. The young right-hander sandwiched two three-pitch strikeouts around a two-pitch flyout to make quick work of the Brewers and send the Orange and Black into the All-Star break on a high note.

The Giants enter the break 48-43, 12.5 games behind Los Angeles for first place in the NL West and just 1/2 game out of a Wild Card spot. They open the second half at the Dodgers on Thursday.