Rafael Devers hit two home runs, Matt Chapman belted the 200th of his career and the San Francisco Giants made it two straight over the visiting Chicago Cubs with a 12-3 shellacking Wednesday night.
Devers also doubled, singled, walked, drove in five runs and scored four times for the Giants, who won a fourth in a row as they attempt to keep their flickering hopes alive in the National League wild-card race.
The Cubs took a 3-1 lead in the second when inning Nico Hoerner launched a three-run homer, his fifth of the season, off Giants starter Carson Whisenhunt (2-1).
But the rest of the night belonged to the Giants, and mostly to Devers, whose solo homer in the first inning against Cubs starter Colin Rea (10-6) got the San Francisco offense rolling.
Devers contributed an RBI ground-rule double to a three-run Giants third that gave the hosts the lead for good. He went the opposite way for a three-run homer in the sixth to break the game open at 10-3. The homers were his 26th and 27th of the season.
In between, the Giants added three in the fifth in an uprising that featured a blooper-reel highlight when Chapman, who had driven in a run with a looping single to right field, unexpectedly got nailed in the back of the helmet by Kyle Tucker’s throw toward the plate.
The ball deflected more than 100 feet and well over catcher Carson Kelly’s head, allowing Dominic Smith to race home with the hit’s second run.
Rea was pulled one batter later, charged with seven runs (six earned) on eight hits in 4 2/3 innings. He walked two and struck out two.
Chapman’s milestone homer, a solo shot that was his 18th of the season, came in the seventh, one inning before Heliot Ramos capped the game’s scoring with a solo blast, his 16th.
The two-homer game was the 21st of Devers’ career and was his second as a Giant. He had never previously had two homers, four runs and five RBIs in the same game.
Chapman finished with three hits, two runs and two RBIs, while Ramos collected two hits and three runs. Andrew Knizner also scored twice for San Francisco, which clinched a second series win over the Cubs this year as well as the season series with a fourth win in five meetings.
Whisenhunt allowed three runs and five hits in five innings. He walked three and struck out three.
Hoerner went 2-for-3 for the Cubs, who were out-hit 13-5.
–Field Level Media
