Andrew Baggarly - MercuryNews
The Giants hoped for incremental growth this season. What they did Friday night was off the charts.
Travis Ishikawa hit a tiebreaking home run, Pablo Sandoval hit his own impressive shot a few innings earlier, and the Giants battered one of the game's best, San Diego Padres ace Jake Peavy, for 11 hits in a 5-2 victory.
That wasn't all. The Giants' rookie setup staff, Alex Hinshaw and Sergio Romo, protected a fragile lead. And closer Brian Wilson proved his mettle, bouncing back from consecutive blown saves by striking out Kevin Kouzmanoff with two runners on.
Even before Sandoval and Ishikawa hit convincing home runs off Peavy, it appeared the league was respecting the talent of the two rookies. There was no clearer sign of that than in the eighth, when Padres Manager Bud Black ordered Peavy to intentionally walk Ishikawa so he could pitch to Aaron Rowand.
The Giants were 50-68 on Aug. 13, when they promoted Sandoval and Ishikawa from the minor leagues. They are 16-13 since.
Jonathan Sanchez established a hard fastball to both sides of the plate while holding the Padres to two runs over six innings. Sanchez (9-10) yielded only a two-run home run to Adrian Gonzalez in the fifth, and even that pitch didn't appear to be a mistake. Gonzalez hit a fastball that was well off the plate and drove it the opposite way into the left-field seats.
Gonzalez is proving to be an elite talent. His homer was his third in two games and 32nd of the season. That's quite a total considering his spacious home park and the lack of other legitimate threats in the Padres' lineup. Ishikawa's homer snapped a tie in the sixth, but Sanchez needed help to make his victory stand up. He got it in the seventh, when he was pulled after Peavy's leadoff single. Hinshaw retired Brian Giles on a fielder's choice and struck out Will Venable to set up a confrontation with Gonzalez, who had homered off the left-hander earlier this season. Hinshaw was a little wiser this time. After shortstop Omar Vizquel jogged over to whisper some advice, Hinshaw pitched carefully to Gonzalez before walking him. Romo entered and threw flame retardant on the threat by getting Kouzmanoff to ground out. The Giants tacked on two runs in the eighth, when Ishikawa received his intentional pass. Rowand drew another walk to load the bases. Eugenio Velez hit into a fielder's choice to score a run, and Vizquel singled to bring in another. Romo issued a leadoff walk in the eighth before retiring the next three hitters to protect the three-run lead. Wilson did the same, but not before a hit and a walk brought the potential tying run to the plate. Wilson got Gonzalez to line out before he blew a fastball past Kouzmanoff to record his 38th save. Randy Winn had two singles, a double and an RBI. He is batting .367 since the All-Star break and climbed to fifth in the National League with a .317 average. Peavy entered the game with a 2.63 ERA that ranked second in the N.L. behind Tim Lincecum's 2.53 ERA. But while the Giants ace has managed a 16-3 record for a losing team, Peavy hasn't done the same. He needed a victory just to get back to .500. Sandoval opened the scoring when he crushed a pitch to the sandbox in right-center field, the most distant point at Petco Park.
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