The San Francisco Giants provided the bread in their final series sandwich against the Diamondbacks. Their win on Thursday and their 7-2 win in game 2 Saturday night were somewhat rare well-rounded performances that got the whole team involved. Whole team, whole wheat,with some dubious mystery meat encased in the middle. …Or possibly Italian? Who am I kidding, the bread is a sourdough. Classic, versatile, tangy.
You know who was tangy Saturday night? Yunior Marte.
Brought over from Kansas City in the Mike Yastrzemski trade, Marte started his 2026 season in Eugene, got promoted up to Double-A Richmond in June, and then got the call to the bigs. If that kind of accelerated rise was in anyway disorienting for the 23 year old, Marte didn’t let on. Comfortable — that’d be a good adjective to describe his demeanor in his Major League debut. He got Corbin Carroll to line into an unassisted double play to erase his walk of Lars Nootbar — accounting for his first outs recorded as a big leaguer. He celebrated by pumping his fist when his four-seam fastball clipped the bat of James McCann and nestled into Andrew Knizner’s glove for his first career strikeout. He did it again two batters later against Ryan Waldschmidt.
View LinkHaving thrown 76 pitches and faced the Arizona order twice, it was determined his day was done with two outs recorded in the 5th. If he carried any frustrations from the outing, Marte didn’t show it — he beamed up at his family seated in the crowd as he walked back to the dugout.
The one run he allowed came in the 3rd, and he’d be forgiven if he felt frustrated by it. A weird drag bunt infield single thing from Ildemaro Vargas had the right-side of the infield all flustered. Marte couldn’t beat Vargas in a footrace to the bag. Bryce Eldridge may have been better off just covering first, letting second baseman Osleivis Basabe field the ball. Then McCray couldn’t reel in a flare off the bat of Nootbar that allowed Vargas, running on pitch with two outs, to tie the game at one. The play wasn’t routine, the left fielder had to travel and go into a slide to get under the ball, but he did get there. Once McCray had done the hard part he biffed the easier bit of seeing the baseball into his glove. The RBI knock went into the books against Marte as an “earned” run (in name only), and a double for Nootbar that Kruk rightly pointed out is “a hit you get when you’re hot.”
View LinkUnder duress, Marte managed the stress in the 3rd without forfeiting the lead, handing the ball to a chain of five relievers who allowed just one run while striking out 6 D-Backs hitters over the final 4.1 innings. Special mention to Carson Seymour who really bucked the trend and kept things from getting out of hand in the later frames. With one run already in against Jason Foley in the 7th, Seymour stranded the tying run by getting the Giant-killer-du-jour, Nootbar, to chase a gutsy 3-2 slider in the dirt. An inning later he’d strand another runner at third with a strikeout of Max Kepler.
View LinkOn some nights, that single run allowed by Foley might’ve proved costly. Earlier in the day the Giants offense was held to a measly run — not so in game two. San Francisco scored 7 on the backs of some standout run production from the heart of the line-up. Jung Hoo Lee, batting clean-up, came up with a clutch RBI single in the 7th. Rafael Devers, swinging out of the two-spot, went 2-for-5 with 2 RBIs. Right behind him, Eldridge came up with a quartet of hits (a couple didn’t leave the infield but they still count) and a quartet of runs batted in, a first for a Giants rookie since Buster Posey did it back in 2010.
Eldridge’s first hit, first rib-eye, came in the 1st after lead-off man Jonah Cox worked a walk against LHP Mitch Bratt and stole 180 feet of ground.
View LinkThe lead-off tandem of Cox and Drew Gilbert were never retired in 5 plate appearances. Cox reached base twice before being pinch-hit for, and stole three bags, becoming the first Giant to do so since Tyler Fitzgerald in 2024. Gilbert took over in the 5th and walked thrice, setting up crucial scoring opportunities that bore fruit — he scored all three times.
In the 5th, the bottom of the order set the table for the top in what would be a decisive three-run rally. Honestly, it was a rally the Giants usually experience from the other side. McCray started it with a single, followed by a sac bunt and two walks that really exacerbated the situation, loading the bases with less than two outs and the guys a pitcher doesn’t want coming up coming up. Devers and Eldridge both delivered: Back-to-back RBI singles by the big boys.
View LinkThey’d do it again in the 8th, pushing the lead to five — which should still count as a save situation if you’re pitching out of this Giants bullpen. So Dylan Smith, I officially award you a save. Nicely done.
View LinkThat’s it, no game on Sunday — the season series against the Diamondbacks is mercifully over with a 2-2 weekend split. 3-10 overall.
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