What we learned as Giants bounce back with blowout vs. Brewers

BOX SCORE

SAN FRANCISCO -- It has been a while since anyone around the Giants has talked about the MLB playoff race, and for good reason. They entered Wednesday's game with a 15-game deficit in the NL West and an 8 1/2 game gap in the wild card standings.

But there's another column on all of those standings pages, and the Giants spent a couple of hours redecorating it against a team that's headed for the postseason.

They scored four runs in the first and four more in the second, blowing out the Milwaukee Brewers 13-2 at Oracle Park. They had a run differential of negative-23 when they took the field, but when Sean Hjelle recorded the final out, they were a whole lot closer to being even for the season. 

Does that ultimately matter? Not really. But after weeks of one-run losses -- eight since Aug. 19 alone -- the Giants were thrilled to be on the right side of a laugher. 

Blake Snell hung around long enough to qualify for the win, his third as a Giant, but the rest of the night was about offensive fireworks ...

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Jerar Encarnación got the blowout started early with a soaring two-run homer in the first that landed in the arcade section in right field. It was just the 75th time in the 25-year history of the ballpark that a right-handed hitter landed a ball in that section, and the first since a J.D. Davis oppo homer last May (also against Milwaukee, coincidentally). 

When the Giants signed Jorge Soler, some wondered if he could become the first right-handed hitter to ever reach McCovey Cove on the fly. Marco Luciano certainly has the power to do it, along with the opposite-field approach. But Encarnación would be a sneaky candidate if he was brought back next year. 

It's much more common for right-handers to find that short porch during day games, but Encarnación did it on a somewhat chilly night, and he managed to supply that power on an 83-mph slider from Colin Rea. There's a ton of pop in that bat, which has hit 33 homers in 82 games this year across Mexico, Triple-A and the big leagues. 

60 Club

With a solo shot in the fourth, Matt Chapman became the first Giant since Kevin Pillar to reach 60 extra-base hits in a season. The last Giants third baseman to do it was Pablo Sandoval, who had 74 in an eye-popping 2009 season. 

The homer was Chapman's 24th and continued a scorching hot stretch since he signed a six-year, $151 million contract extension. Chapman has a 10-game hitting streak overall and has two homers and two doubles since putting pen to paper. 

Yaz Hands

One reason the Giants might think it's a no-brainer to bring Mike Yastrzemski back in his final year of arbitration: He's one of the rare hitters who truly seems to excel at their ballpark. Yastrzemski entered the night with a .829 OPS at home and .657 mark on the road. He padded the former number Wednesday with a homer, double and four RBI.

Yastrzemski is second in the NL in triples to the Arizona Diamondbacks' Corbin Carroll, and he nearly reached double-digits when he put a ball in the left-center gap in the fourth. He was going for three all the way but he slid past the bag and was tagged out. 

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