SF Giants blow out Pirates behind Webb’s gem, three homers

PITTSBURGH — The Giants haven’t had many complete team victories in recent weeks. Their romping of the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday night at PNC Park certainly qualifies.

Christian Koss, Jerar Encarnacion and Willy Adames all homered. Every player in the starting lineup recorded a hit. Logan Webb pitched six innings of one-run ball and recorded 10 strikeouts and just one walk. Matt Gage and Tristan Beck combined for three scoreless innings of relief.

The result: An 8-1 thumping of the Pirates, a victory that ensures that the Giants (57-57) will split this six-game road trip at the minimum. On Wednesday afternoon, they’ll have a chance to take four of six and creep back over the .500 mark.

“This is the type of baseball we set out to play,” Webb said. “It’s not like we’re not trying to do that. You could feel it in the dugout, you could feel it before the game. There was a lot of energy today that was really good. … We play in 15 hours, so we got to turn around and keep that momentum going and not get complacent. Not that we were; I just think we got to keep that same energy we brought early in the season and get back to trying to play good baseball and win each day.”

Webb has course corrected since his three-start stretch where he allowed 16 earned runs, the most he’s given up over a three-start span in his career. Over his last two starts, both of which have been against the Pirates, Webb has allowed one run over 11 2/3 innings with 21 strikeouts.

“Those three (starts) weren’t very good,” Webb said. “Just trying … to give the team a chance. I don’t think I did a great job of that leading up to this. Happy I was able to do that the last two, but I just have to keep going.”

This marks the second time in Webb’s career he’s totaled at least 10 strikeouts in back-to-back starts, the other instance being on July 3 and July 9, 2023. Webb also crossed the 1,000-inning threshold for his career, joining Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Tim Lincecum, Barry Zito, Jason Schmidt and Kirk Reuter as the only other Giants to log at least 1,000 innings this millennium.

“It’s cool. 2,500 away from Justin (Verlander), so got some work to do,” Webb said. “I want to give as many (innings) as I can.”

Encarnacion’s home run, a solo shot in the top of the fourth, was his first of the season, a much-needed swing in his first start back from the injured list from an oblique injury. On a night where the ball wasn’t flying out to center field, Encarnacion turned an elevated fastball into a 415-foot, 107.7-mph drive that landed in the shrubbery beyond the center-field fence.

The Giants expected Encarnacion to be a key contributor for their offense, but he missed the first two months of the season after fracturing his hand when diving for a ball towards the end of spring training. Encarnacion struggled upon returning in early June following an abbreviated rehab assignment (.136 batting average over eight games), then sustained an oblique injury that forced him to miss more time.

Encarnacion’s second rehab assignment lasted the maximum 20 days before the Giants reinstated him from the injured list prior to Monday’s 5-4 loss. He re-discovered his swing with Triple-A Sacramento, hitting .295 with two homers over 12 games. With Mike Yastrzemski traded to the Kansas City Royals, Encarnacion will have an opportunity to seize the majority of the playing time in right field.

“I feel super good. There’s nothing that is bothering me right now. The swing is perfect,” Encarnacion said through team interpreter Erwin Higueros.

“There were some balls hit hard to center field today that didn’t go anywhere, and his went somewhere,” said manager Bob Melvin. “So, that’s the kind of power he has. … When you come back after this kind of layoff and contribute right away and hit a homer, I know that does a world of confidence for you.”

Koss, making his first start back from the injured list, put the Giants on the scoreboard in the third by turning a middle-middle fastball from Mike Burrows into a two-run homer giving the Giants a 2-0 lead. The Pirates scored a run in the bottom of the frame while making Webb throw 35 pitches, but San Francisco got that run right back on Encarnacion’s shot to dead center field.

In the fifth, the Giants scored three more runs thanks, in large part, to an embarrassing error by Pirates left fielder Tommy Pham. With two outs, Heliot Ramos ripped a single to left and was intent on remaining at first, but Pham spiked his throw to second base and Ramos scampered to second.

Rafael Devers followed up by driving in Ramos with a single, then Adames continued padding the lead with an opposite-field two-run home run, his 18th homer of the year.

The Giants entered blowout territory in the top of the sixth when Patrick Bailey drove in two runs with a single, expanding the lead to 8-1.

“With where we’re at as a team, we know we’re better and we’re a playoff team trying to make the push,” Koss said. “When you see guys stringing together at-bats like that against a good pitcher who pretty much had our number last time, it’s a good sign.”