Rookie Grant McCray homered twice and knocked in five runs on Saturday night as the visiting San Francisco Giants posted a 6-3 win over the San Diego Padres.
McCray erased an early 2-0 deficit with a three-run blast in the second inning off San Diego starter Dylan Cease (12-11), then added insurance in the ninth by cracking a two-run homer off reliever Yuki Matsui. McCray entered the contest hitting .246 with three homers in 18 big-league games this season.
Giants starter Logan Webb (12-9) lasted six innings to earn the victory, scattering 10 hits and three runs to go along with two walks and three strikeouts. Webb was helped by a defense that turned three double plays, including one that hampered a potential big first inning.
Three relievers got the final nine outs for the Giants, with Ryan Walker pitching the ninth for his sixth save of the year as San Francisco improved to 70-73 and took a 5-4 lead against San Diego in the season series.
Cease permitted six hits and four runs over six innings, walking two and fanning four. The loss dropped the Padres to 81-63, although they remained 1 1/2 games ahead of Arizona for the National League’s first wild-card spot after the Diamondbacks’ 11-5 loss to the Houston Astros earlier Saturday.
San Diego started quickly for the third straight game with two runs in the first, but Webb did a solid job of limiting the damage the rest of the way. The first four men of the frame reached, with Manny Machado singling home Luis Arraez. Webb induced a double-play ball from Xander Bogaerts that plated the second run, then got David Peralta to fly out.
McCray put the Giants ahead for good an inning later, unloading a no-doubt homer to right field that soared an estimated 417 feet and traveled about halfway into the lower deck. Two innings later, his double-play grounder scored Patrick Bailey for a 4-2 advantage.
Arraez’s third hit of the game, an RBI single in the fifth, pulled the Padres within 4-3.
–Field Level Media
