SAN FRANCISCO - Derek Holland and Chad Bettis spent much of this night glaring in at home plate umpire John Tumpane. After one inning, Holland even walked over the plate and motioned Tumpane over for a quick chat about some of the perceived squeezing.
Both pitchers worked with the zone, though, and in the end it helped the Giants. Holland and Bettis turned this into a pitcher's duel and Gorkys Hernandez won it in the eighth, taking a couple of close pitches from Adam Ottavino to force a walk with the bases loaded. Sam Dyson closed out the 3-2 win.
The victory was the sixth in eight games on this homestead for the Giants. Here are the details…
-- Hernandez has been playing professional baseball since 2006 and he just reached double-digit homers for the first time. Hernandez took Bettis deep in the third to pick up his 10th shot of the first half. The closest he came before this season was 2016, when he hit eight homers for the Sacramento River Cats.
-- Holland went a season-high 6 2/3 innings, scattering six hits and two walks. Every time he ran into trouble, he pulled through. The Rockies put runners on the corners with one out in the third but Charlie Blackmon lined into a double play. They had two on with no outs in the fifth but Holland whiffed two and got a flyball to center. Two more reached with one out in the sixth, but Holland struck out Ian Desmond and got an inning-ending groundout.
-- Hunter Pence owes the BABIP Gods a beer or two. Two days after he bounced a game-winning hit inside the bag, he reached with a pinch-hit single that dribbled until it tapped third base. The infield single had a launch angle of negative 76 degrees.
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-- Austin Slater scored the go-ahead run by beating a good throw home from left fielder Gerardo Parra. The young outfielder reached 29.2 feet per second, which puts him right there with some of the faster recordings by the Giants this season. In terms of sprint speed, he's up there with McCutchen, Hanson, Tomlinson, Blanco and Hernandez. Sneaky fast.
