SAN FRANCISCO — Wilmer Flores hit a go-ahead home run, Jung Hoo Lee tripled home an insurance run, and same cast that has powered the Giants’ strong start to the season carried them to 5-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers to begin their homestand Monday night.
The score was tied at 2 when Flores launched a first-pitch sinker from Grant Anderson deep into the left-field bleachers with two outs in the seventh.
His team-leading seven homers trail only four other players for the most in the majors, while only Aaron Judge has more RBIs than Flores (24).
“The RBIs that Flo has come up with, it’s when he does them that’s so impressive,” manager Bob Melvin said. “It’s not surprising by now with all the dramatics he’s had over the course of his career in big spots. But he’s been incredibly consistent, and so has Jung Hoo.”
With three innings of scoreless relief, Hayden Birdsong earned the win in his first work in nearly a week, and with Ryan Walker unavailable after pitching the past two games, Camilo Doval recorded his third save of the season with a 1-2-3 ninth inning.
The Giants improved to 5-0 behind Robbie Ray, but they had to claw back from a 2-0 deficit after Caleb Durbin took him deep in the second inning.
Ray was far from sharp but rebounded from the long ball to turn in one of his longest starts of the season. It took him 91 pitches to complete five innings, and he issued three walks, but he went deeper than he had since April 5 vs. Seattle and issued his fewest free passes since his first start in Cincinnati on March 30.
“Today was probably about as close as I’ve felt to ’21 in a while,” Ray said, referring to his Cy Young-winning season with Toronto. “I felt like my fastball was really good tonight. That was my main focus coming into this: just establishing the fastball.”
Ray attacked the Brewers with 38 fastballs in his first 42 pitches, and one resulted in both of their runs: a letter-high offering to Durbin, which the No. 9 hitter deposited just beyond the left-field wall for a two-run blast after Joey Ortiz reached by beating out a double play.
The runs were the first Ray had allowed against Milwaukee since 2016, spanning 20⅓ innings. He picked off Jackson Chourio in the top of the first to pass Chris Bassitt for the longest active scoreless streak against the Brewers, then lost the belt when Durbin took him deep the next inning.
The Giants got one run back at a time, getting two-out single from Patrick Bailey that allowed Heliot Ramos to race home from second to make it 2-1 in the second inning and tying the game when Tyler Fitzgerald came around to score after legging out his second infield single of the game in the fifth.
It all led up to the big homer from Flores, who has seemingly had as many as any player around the league this season. He also worked a two-out walk that set up Bailey’s RBI single in the second and poked a single past first baseman Rhys Hoskins in the eighth.
“We all know he could do it, it was just a matter of him getting healthy and being able to get that feel back of what he knows how to do,” Ray said of Flores, who hit four home runs and drove in 26 runs all last season while battling tendonitis in his right knee. “It’s been really special to watch
Lee’s triple was his second of the season, one off the major-league lead. He already leads the majors with 10 doubles and possesses a team-best .983 OPS. Before lacing Jared Koenig’s 1-0 sinker into right-center field, the 31,758 on hand were serenading him with his Korean fight song and chants of his own name.
“Triple’s Alley is kind of made for him,” Melvin said. “It’s not the last one you’re going to see from him.”
Playing his first game against his former team, Willy Adames scored from first on Lee’s triple but finished hitless in four at-bats as his batting average sank bank below .200, to .194.
The five runs equaled best scoring output in five games for the Giants, who had lost three of their past four and wasted a pair of walks to lead off the first two innings when Mike Yastrzemski and Matt Chapman were each thrown out attempting to steal bases.
Chapman’s walk in the second inning was his MLB-best 22nd of the season in 23 games.
San Francisco had been 18-for-21 on the bases before being thrown out twice.
“When you win a game,” Melvin said, “you can live with it.”
The four-game series continues Tuesday at 6:45 p.m. with RHP Jordan Hicks (1-2, 6.04) against LHP José Quintana (2-0, 0.71).