After being swept by the Miami Marlins at home, the Giants kicked off their 10-game road trip with a 3-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Friday night at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Right-hander Landen Roupp allowed one run (none earned) over 5 1/3 innings with four strikeouts while catcher Patrick Bailey scored a run and drove in two more with a triple, his first time driving in multiple runs in a game since May 6 against the Chicago Cubs.
“If you don’t have your best stuff and you go out there and you give up one run — unearned — you did pretty well,” manager Bob Melvin told reporters in Chicago.
Roupp, 26, continues to solidify himself as the third-best starter in San Francisco’s rotation behind Logan Webb and Robbie Ray. Since May, Roupp owns a 2.45 ERA over 51 1/3 innings with five quality starts.
The right-hander’s last two starts have been especially impressive given how he responded to the worst start of his career.
Roupp ended his outing against the Dodgers on June 14 having totaled more earned runs (six) than outs recorded (five) as San Francisco was blown out by Los Angeles. In his two starts since then, Roupp has allowed no earned runs over 11 1/3 innings with 11 strikeouts, lowering his ERA on the season to 3.43 in the process.
Closer Camilo Doval enjoyed a bounce back of his own as he recorded his 13th save of the season.
Doval allowed six runs (five earned) in his last two outings of San Francisco’s recent homestand, ballooning his ERA from 1.59 to 2.78. Against Miami on Wednesday, Doval allowed four runs (three earned) in the top of the 10th inning as the Giants lost in extra innings to the Marlins.
The right-hander’s outing against Chicago, then, was a return to normalcy: a 1-2-3 ninth inning with a pair of swinging strikeouts.
On multiple occasions Friday, Roupp had to work out of trouble with his back against the wall.
The White Sox loaded the bases in the bottom of the fourth inning with one out on two singles and a walk, but Roupp induced an inning-ending double play to escape the frame unscathed.
Chicago, once again, put a man on each base with one out in the following inning when Roupp plunked Chase Meidroth, walked Andrew Benintendi and allowed a single to Miguel Vargas. With no margin for error, Roupp struck out Kyle Teel swinging with a beautiful changeup, then got Lenyn Sosa to hit an inning-ending pop out.
“He’s a competitor,” Melvin said. “He always has the sinker. He throws the sinker at the bottom of the knees for a strike, a lot of times it’s a ground ball. That’s what he relies on.”
The White Sox scored the game’s first run in the bottom of the first inning when shortstop Willy Adames had a very odd defensive sequence.
With runners on first and second, Adames couldn’t catch a line drive off the bat of Vargas that was hit directly at him and was charged with an error. Left fielder Heliot Ramos collected the ball and fired a throw at Adames, but Adames wasn’t looking and the ball rolled past him. Third baseman Christian Koss quickly grabbed the ball and threw home, but Chicago’s Meidroth dove home to score and Chicago had a 1-0 lead.
San Francisco tied it in the top of the third inning when Wilmer Flores, a day removed from his frustrations against Miami, pulled a double down the left-field line that allowed Bailey to score.
The Giants took a 3-1 lead in the sixth as Bailey drove in Adames and Koss on a two-run triple when White Sox right fielder Ryan Noda dove and missed Bailey’s low line drive.
“When we get a big hit like that, it’s huge. Especially in a game like that where one at-bat could dictate the course of the game,” Melvin said. “Earlier in the season, we were really good in a lot of those situations and we haven’t been (recently). But to get that one right there obviously was the biggest hit of the game.”