Unlikely outfield duo helps Landen Roupp turn frustrating drought into career-best Giants night

On a night when the SF Giants got to see former All-Star Kevin Gausman and long-tenured reliever Tyler Rogers — who received a nice tribute video honoring his seven seasons with the club — it was current Giants players who took center stage and propelled the Giants to a convincing 10-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays at Oracle Park.

For the first time since April 26, Landen Roupp finally picked up a win. Eleven straight games had gone by without it happening, and to make matters worse, his team had lost all 11 of those games with him on the mound. Aided by some strong outfield production from the Giants' new duo in the corners, Roupp took advantage of a scuffling Blue Jays team to finally snap the drought. And he did it in style.

Roupp looked a lot more like himself

Over those previous 11 games, the 27-year-old right-hander had gone 0-7 with a 5.87 ERA and 1.68 WHIP while delivering just three quality starts. He never pitched beyond the sixth inning during that funk. On Monday against Toronto, Roupp tossed a career-high eight innings and allowed just one run on three hits. Meanwhile, in just his second game back at Oracle Park since leaving in 2021, Gausman gave up seven runs, five earned, and issued five free passes in just 5 1/3 innings.

On the season, just 42.3% of Roupp's pitches have been thrown inside the zone, and 58.4% of his first pitches have been strikes, both career lows. Against the Blue Jays, 50% of his pitches caught the zone, and 70% of his first pitches were strikes.

Though he still issued at least two walks for the 13th time this season, it was his aggressiveness that allowed him to pitch through the eighth for the first time in his career.

Coming into the game, Roupp averaged 18.33 pitches per inning. His 104 pitches in eight innings against Toronto added up to just 13 pitches per inning. But despite his stellar outing, his 17.90 pitches per inning are still the second-highest among qualified MLB pitchers, trailing only the Mets' Freddy Peralta.

"Just relentless attacking of the strike zone," Tony Vitello noted of Roupp's performance. "He's outstanding, and it's fun to watch him play compete that way. When he's fighting himself and fighting to get it in the zone, it's not so fun. And you get that little period (the 11-game stretch), but he's capable of great things when he's in the strike zone."

The Giants have too often played the role of the get-right team this season. So when this very cold Toronto lineup — one that had averaged just 2.16 runs per game over its previous two series and had been shut out four times in that span — came into town, the reasons for concern were legitimate. But not this time. Roupp prolonged the Blue Jays' misery by extending their streak of scoreless innings to 29 2/3 before giving up a solo shot to Kazuma Okamoto in the sixth.

The Giants, for once, took care of business on the mound and at the plate, carried by Roupp and supported by a makeshift duo of outfielders.

This outfield combo might work just fine

When Heliot Ramos finally came back from a quad strain that forced him to miss over a month of competition, questions about the construction of the outfield and the roster as a whole suddenly arose, and rightfully so.

With rookie Victor Bericoto playing like a big-leaguer over the last couple of weeks, the Giants' coaching staff had to find a way to keep his bat and glove in the lineup. They came up with the solution of moving Jung Hoo Lee back to center field, a position where he's been statistically poor throughout his career, and putting Ramos in right field. Prior to this season, Ramos had started only 16 games in the right corner.

The early results with Bericoto and Ramos sharing the corners indicate that Ramos should start a lot more going forward. Over the five games in which Bericoto started in left and Ramos started in right, the duo has gone a combined 16-for-41 (.390) with five home runs, 12 RBIs, and 11 runs scored.

Currently tied for 28th with the Colorado Rockies on the outfield Outs Above Average leaderboard with a -9 mark, the Giants probably won't be propelled up that table by the trio of Bericoto, Lee, and Ramos. But if Lee can hit like he has at times this season, and Bericoto and Ramos can provide power on a consistent basis, this solution could quickly become a mainstay. Until Harrison Bader comes back, and then it's back to the drawing board.

Against Toronto, Bericoto, Lee, and Ramos combined for six of the Giants' eight hits and scored six of the team's ten runs. Ramos, in his eighth game since coming off the injured list, accounted for three of those runs while going 3-for-5 with two homers, a triple, and five runs batted in. He showed off his strength by going both ways — first over the right-field wall and then 15 rows over the left center-field fence — and recorded his first career multi-homer game. His home run total easily could have gone up to three, as his triple in the first inning would have been a home run in every other ballparks.

"I knew it," said Ramos of his triple being a home run in every ball parks but Oracle. "I was talking to Rafi I was like 'They gotta bring it in.'"

When asked which swing was his favorite, Ramos didn't really hesitate.

"I like the one homer to right," Ramos answered. "Yeah I love that one, that was nice. That was a nice swing."

Vitello had another opinion.

"We were in awe of the second home run", he said.

Despite missing a significant period of time due to his injury, Ramos appears to be back at full strength. So is Landen Roupp after his rough patch. And Bericoto is breaking new ground every day. This team looks really good when things are clicking on both ends, but that's not new. We've seen this movie before.

Was it just another encouraging win, only this time in July, or was it actually the start of a winning stretch that could revitalize what appears to be a lost season? That final push before the All-Star break should provide answers to those questions.

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