LOS ANGELES — Before the Giants’ barrage of homers, before the beating sun set behind the blue-hued seats in the upper deck of Dodger Stadium, before San Francisco’s first win here all season, closer Camilo Doval was contorting himself on the clubhouse floor, just trying to maximize the area of his body exposed to a high-powered fan.
It was that hot.
The 90-degree temperature at first pitch marked the sixth-hottest conditions the Giants have played in this season.
In other words, weather that makes the ball fly.
And fly, fly it did Monday night in Chavez Ravine.
With five home runs from Lewis Brinson (twice), J.D. Davis, Thairo Estrada and David Villar — four between the third and fourth innings — the Giants matched their season-high and provided Logan Webb more than enough padding to pick up their first win in seven games this season at Dodger Stadium, 7-4.
“We’re taking September very seriously,” said manager Gabe Kapler, who turned to Doval for the third straight night to keep them undefeated in four games this month. “It’s an important opportunity to build confidence for this group and we see it as a foundation for 2023.”
The Giants continued their mojo from a weekend sweep of the Phillies, but in a reminder of how off course the season has gone, still trailed the Dodgers by 26.5 games in the NL West (though, technically still alive, with an elimination number of three games).
“We’re just trying to have fun,” said Webb, who allowed three runs (two earned) over six innings. “The energy in the dugout and the clubhouse is getting a lot better. There’s nothing really to lose now.”
The fun Monday night started at about 7:45 p.m., when the first ball left Brinson’s bat with one on and one out in the third. By 8:05, Villar was rounding the bases with their fourth home run in two innings. Brinson’s second? Oh, about 9:55, some 20 minutes before Doval registered the final out for his 20th save of the season.
The five homers generated all seven of the Giants’ runs, and two more off Dodgers bats — a two-run blast by Freddie Freeman in the first and a solo shot from Austin Barnes in the seventh — accounted for three of their four runs, too.
Two Giants blasts came from a former first-round and top-100 prospect pick cast aside by four franchises and available for a small (by MLB terms) sum of cash. Another was delivered by a 26-year-old who didn’t even appear on a list of Giants’ top prospects before this season but hit so well at Double- and Triple-A that he couldn’t be denied a call-up.
“He’s just a physical specimen,” Villar, the latter, said of Brinson, the former. “He glides in the outfield, glides on the bases, everything. And he can hit the ball 450 feet. It’s good to have a guy like that on your team.”
It was the fourth multi-homer game of Brinson’s career, a reminder of the raw talent that made him a top prospect. A career .200 hitter with a .570 major-league OPS, though, Brinson was in the bargain bin because has never been able to translate those tools consistently against major-league pitching.
“Just gotta take advantage of it,” Brinson said of the September showcase he’s getting with the Giants.
The Giants were aided by the weather, but also their opponent. Dodgers starter Andrew Heaney had allowed six home runs in his three previous starts entering Monday, already the most in the majors over that span.
Making his 27th start of the season, setting a new career-high in appearances, Webb’s six innings were hardly stress free but ultimately limited the high-powered Dodgers lineup to three runs (two earned) while pitching in the same conditions.
Webb struck out six and didn’t issue a walk but had to pitch around runners on base in four of his six frames.
“If you give up a run to the tougher part of their lineup, it’s not a big deal,” Kapler said. “It’s the walks that generally kill us, and I thought we did a nice job of keeping their team off the base path via the walk. … The game started frustrating, but he was able to channel some of that frustration into the later innings and hung in there against one of the best lineups in baseball.”
After being given a 6-2 lead, Webb worked himself into and out of trouble in the fourth. Despite allowing a pair of singles to Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy to lead off the inning, Webb limited the damage to one run — on Joey Gallo’s line-drive double down the right-field line — by inducing a weak pop fly from Miguel Vargas and getting Cody Bellinger to strike out looking, stranding runners at second and third.
The next inning, Brandon Crawford fired a strike of a relay throw from shallow left field to keep the Los Angeles off the board. In a play reminiscent of the game-winning relay in San Diego last month, Mookie Betts lined a double into the left-field corner, and Austin Barnes tried to score from first. But Bryce Johnson hit his relay man, Crawford, whose dart home beat Barnes by a wide enough margin that catcher Austin Wynns was able to lay a routine tag on him for the out.
Longoria, who has been nursing a sore hamstring, recorded the final out of the fifth by leaping well off the ground to snag a hard line drive off the bat of Freeman, the only out the Dodgers’ first baseman made in three at-bats against Webb.
“That was awesome. … He got up there,” Webb said. “Maybe it’s the hair.”
“Obviously the home runs were big,” Kapler said. “I think we at least equally won the game with some defense.”
Freeman gave the Dodgers a 2-0 lead in the first inning. After Betts, the leadoff man, reached on a throwing error by Longoria, Freeman unloaded a slider for a towering two-run shot into the right-field seats. The homer was Freeman’s eighth career hit against Webb and the single his ninth in 17 at-bats, tied for the most of any major-leaguer.
“I could literally throw that guy anything and he’s going to hit it,” said Webb, who noticed Freeman’s stats against him displayed on the outfield scoreboard. “He probably is the best hitter in baseball. He doesn’t really have any holes.”
The Giants, though, took the lead for good in the top of the third with their own power display.
Before the game, Kapler remarked on Brinson’s track record of success against lefties and his ability to drive the ball to all fields. “There’s some damage in there,” he said.
Those comments quickly looked prescient, as Brinson slugged a Heaney heater 429 feet to dead center. The homer was his first in four games since the Giants acquired the former first-round pick for cash, and tied the score at 2.
Davis, who grew up in a family of Dodgers fans, broke the tie two batters later, slugging a solo shot that landed only a few feet away from Brinson’s blast. In a month since coming over at the trade deadline, Davis has more home runs with the Giants (five) than he did in four previous months with the Mets (four).
And they weren’t done yet.
The second pair of homers in the fourth, from Estrada and Villar, totaled four in a span of about 20 minutes.
Brinson’s second of the night, a solo shot off Justin Bruihl in the top of the ninth, traveled 380 feet before landing in the right-center field seats.
With their fifth homer of the night, the Giants tied their previous high for the season (June 3 at Miami in a 15-6 win) and secured only their third game ever at Dodger Stadium with five home runs. It hadn’t been done since a 10-0 win here on Oct. 3, 2004, when Ray Durham, Pedro Feliz, Marquis Grissom, Deivi Cruz and Jason Ellison all hit one.
Moments after returning to the dugout from his home run trot, Villar was spotted with Kapler in his ear, and before the top half of the next inning, he had been replaced at first base by Wilmer Flores. Estrada, who started in left field, shifted to second base, and Johnson moved to left in order to insert Mike Yastrzemski in right.
“What I told David is, ‘Look, you’re already having a great game,'” Kapler said. “I knew he was going to feel good coming out of that game, we were going to improve at several positions … so with Logan Webb on the mound and a lead to protect, our infield defense got better and our outfield defense got better, as well.”
It didn’t take long for the defensive upgrade to pay off, as it took a bullet from Johnson to Crawford on the first connection of their relay to give them a chance at nabbing Barnes at home.
Provided a rare lead over the Dodgers, the Giants had no plans of relinquishing it.
After taking a 3-2 advantage in the third and holding on the rest of the way, the Giants led at the conclusion of more innings Monday night (seven) than they had in their previous seven meetings since the All-Star break (leading after three of those 72 innings).
“It was a great night, man,” Brinson said. “Obviously the two home runs were awesome, but we got the win against a great Dodgers team. Now we’ve got to keep this winning streak going.”
