OAKLAND -- Joc Pederson provided the Giants with a pair of early runs Saturday night at the Oakland Coliseum by scoring one and driving in another, but then the offense went to sleep.
Athletics starting pitcher Adam Oller, who entered the day with a 7.68 ERA, cruised through the Giants’ lineup in the third, fourth and fifth innings. The last-place A's scored just one run off ace Carlos Rodón but were hitting the ball hard. The door was open for a Bay Bridge Series comeback.
But then, LaMonte Wade Jr. woke up the Giants for good with a two-run blast into the right field seats for his fourth blast of the season, scoring Joey Bart from first base.
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The next inning, Bart joined Wade in the dinger club with a 406-foot no-doubter off left-hander Kirby Snead to put an exclamation mark on San Francisco’s 7-3 win.
It's a sign that Bart and Wade -- two players who admittedly have not quite lived up to the sizable expectations that greeted them in spring training -- are starting to put it together offensively.
“Very encouraging,” manager Gabe Kapler said of the two players after the game. “These are the guys that we are going to need to perform if we’re going to the postseason. It’s going to need to be a lot of [consistency]. That’s what we saw today, and we’re going to carry that into tomorrow."
San Francisco Giants
The Giants (52-55) envisioned that Bart would shoulder the load of the catching duties after Buster Posey retired in the offseason, only to watch the 25-year-old catcher slump to a .596 OPS in 36 games, leading to him being optioned to Triple-A Sacramento in June.
However, Bart has been a tough out for opposing pitchers since the front office traded Curt Casali at Tuesday's deadline, entrusting him with the primary catching duties once again.
Since Casali was traded to the Seattle Mariners, Bart has notched multiple hits in all three games he has played, going 7-for-13 with two home runs, three RBI and three runs scored.
Over the last 19 games, Bart has mashed five homers after hammering four in the previous 76 games of his career.
It's a small sample size -- and Kapler wouldn't cite any specific improvement in Bart's swing on Saturday night -- but nevertheless, the skipper is encouraged.
"The contact itself is hard and consistent," Kapler said. "It’s a good sign. Particularly against left-handed pitching, he has been doing really good work. Again, I think we want to take a real measured approach to how we’re talking about this. But he’s moving in the right direction and playing good baseball across the board."
Wade, one of the Giants' best stories of the magical 107-win 2021 season, dealt with knee injuries earlier this season. He has a .680 OPS and four home runs through 35 games, a far cry from his 18 dingers and .808 OPS last year, but Saturday's blast is an encouraging sign.
"We’ve been working on some stuff in the cages,” Wade said. “Things have been feeling better as of late, so just got to keep rolling and going with it."
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The Giants have plenty of work to do. After Saturday’s win, San Francisco remains seven games back out of a playoff spot with 55 games remaining. The team can't afford another lengthy losing skid. Or any losing streak, for that matter.
But if San Francisco is going to make a push to play October baseball, expect Wade and Bart to be right in the thick of it.