SAN FRANCISCO — All of a sudden, a lot is going right for the Giants.
Mac Williamson and Brandon Belt homered, Sam Dyson continued his comeback from a spring full of problems and Hunter Strickland closed it out as the Giants beat the Nationals 4-3. They’ve won four of five and have taken two series in a row after a slow start to the season.
The Williamson thing is becoming a nightly deal. Ditto for Belt. But Dyson was a new wrinkle. He looked like a DFA candidate a week ago but has thrown well since, and he got through the heart of the Nationals’ order in the eighth to preserve a one-run lead.
Here’s what else you need to know from the day Bruce Bochy joined Twitter…
Immediate impact: Tanner Roark tried to flip a first-pitch curveball up there when Williamson came up with two outs in the sixth. The ball came in at 74 mph and screamed out to center field at 109.2 mph. The Giants have four homers this season of at least 109 mph and Williamson — who has been here for five games — has three of them.
No worse for wear: Williamson (and the lineup) survived a scare in the fifth. He traveled a long way to try and catch Bryce Harper’s pop-up to foul territory and he went down hard as he crossed the bullpen mound, hitting his head on the padded wall separating the field from the seats. Trainer Dave Groeschner came out to check on the left fielder but he stayed in the game.
Belt beats Roark...again: Belt also took Roark deep, again. Belt famously hit a homer off Roark in the 18th inning of a playoff game in 2014, and on this night he crushed one to right for his fifth homer in six games.
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Trouble in the fourth: Ty Blach was shoving early. He opened with three scoreless innings that included three strikeouts and three weak grounders back to the mound. But in the fourth, Blach walked Ryan Zimmerman and gave up a single to Moises Sierra before watching Michael A. Taylor became the rare righty to find the arcade section. Taylor’s three-run blast the opposite way tied the game.
