Giants' lightning strike

Bowker's grand slam caps 6-run 8th in Washington

Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate)

A keen baseball man had an interesting observation: The Nationals, whose ancestors in Montreal used to spit out home-grown players the way Nabisco makes crackers, had two progeny of their farm system on the field Saturday night. The Giants, so maligned for their system, had three.

Two of the three had memorable performances in a 6-0 victory. Jonathan Sanchez smartly held up his end of a 0-0 game through seven innings, and when the Giants defaced the pitchers' duel with a six-run eighth, John Bowker hit his first career grand slam.

The Giants' second win in two nights at Nationals Park ended with a terrific lightning storm beyond the center-field fence, rivaling the view of a lighted U.S. Capitol dome in the distance beyond left field. The lightning moved closer as the final outs were made.

"I was nervous about going out there and shaking hands," manager Bruce Bochy said. "It came on quick. When you're one of the biggest guys out there, you don't want to be the first one out there."

The temperature was "smoking," in the words of Rich Aurilia. It will be hotter still this afternoon, so the Giants are fortunate to have a slew of younger players.

They still cannot qualify as a "young" team as long as Aurilia, Ray Durham, Bengie Molina and Randy Winn continue to get consistent starts. Moreover, they have a long way to travel before they can be viewed as a farm-fueled franchise. But they have taken the first steps.

Bowker grew up in Sacramento and saw the Giants bring up prospects who did not go anywhere, "but once I got drafted by the Giants," he said, "it never entered my mind. It's probably wouldn't have been smart to talk about that."

Now that he and other organizational players are here, they have the confidence they can change the nature of this team.

"Look at the Rockies and Diamondbacks," Bowker said. "We played against all those guys in the minors, and we know we can play against those guys here."

Bowker homered in his first two big-league games, but pitchers soon figured out how to go after him. He was in a 6-for-40 slump when he went 2-for-4 in the series opener Friday night, then hit the grand slam on a Luis Ayala changeup Saturday. Bowker said he had been too impatient to wait for good pitches to hit and was chasing pitchers' pitches, a recipe for the Mendoza Line.

"I told him, 'When you swing at strikes you're a good hitter, and when you don't, you're just like everybody else,' " said batting coach Carney Lansford, noting Bowker's improvement.

Bowker could take a great hitting lesson out of everything that happened in the six-run eighth inning against starter Shawn Hill and Ayala. The Giants had a succession of superior at-bats, starting with Jose Castillo's rally-opening single to center with one out. Randy Winn went the other way with a double, sending Castillo to third, the first player on either team to get there.

Molina - who else? - fell behind 0-2 but recovered to drive in the game's first run with a 1-2 single through a drawn-in infield. Durham walked to load the bases for Aurilia, who also fell behind 1-2, then singled home a run to set up Bowker's slam.

"Richie's at-bat was just unbelievable," Bowker said. "It fired me up."

"Glad I could help," Aurilia said, adding that the good two-strike hitting is a product of experience.

"The guys in here have played a long time," he said, "and the mind-set is not being afraid to hit from behind in the count and not doing too much with guys in scoring position, and not swinging at the first pitch."

The six runs of support helped Sanchez improve to 5-3. Sanchez has allowed no more than two runs in each of his last five starts, with Saturday's being the best. His newfound consistency has to be one of the Giants' most pleasant surprises this season. For the Giants right now, it's Lincecum and Sanchez and pray for whatever the heck rhymes with Sanchez.

Sanchez benefited from three double plays, all started by Omar Vizquel, the oldest player on a field of Giants who are getting younger and, the organization hopes, not too far from getting better.