No no-no for Blake Snell, but SF Giants beat Nationals with power show

As storms rolled toward the nation’s capital Wednesday evening, it was the Giants who continued to bring the thunder.

Blake Snell’s bid to join Johnny Vander Meer in the history books may have come up short, but the Giants got their 13th, 14th and 15th home runs of the road trip and smacked the Nationals, 7-4, to even their record back to .500 (58-58) and guarantee that no matter the result of Thursday’s 9:05 a.m. PT finale they will return home with a winning record on the seven-game trip.

The Nationals loaded the bases in the ninth inning, bringing the potential winning run to the plate, and manager Bob Melvin had Jordan Hicks warming quickly in the bullpen, but Camilo Doval got Alex Call to ground into a double play to end the game and record his 22nd save.

Mike Yastrzemski’s upper-deck shot to right field tied the score at 3 in the fourth inning, Heliot Ramos’ line drive over the Giants’ bullpen gave them the lead the following inning and Matt Chapman turned the spigots on with a near-identical blast two batters later.

In 110 games before Friday, the Giants had hit 109 home runs. But in six games since hitting the road against the Reds, their 15 are the most in the majors in that span. They improved to 11-1 when getting at least three in one game.

They had homered 12 times in their first five games but produced only 24 runs, a result of poor situational hitting, batting .111 in 36 opportunities with runners in scoring position. But in seven chances Wednesday, they got three hits, plus an RBI triple from Yastrzemski that drove home Tyler Fitzgerald from first base to begin a two-run sixth that extended the lead to 7-3.

The triple was Yastrzemski’s ninth of the season, one behind Corbin Carroll for most in the National League, and with his 422-foot homer knocked out the two most difficult portions of the cycle within his first three trips to the plate. But he popped out in his only other at-bat.

Of the Giants’ 15 homers in their past six games, four have come from Chapman, who added two more hits to finish a triple shy of the cycle, raising his OPS over the past 14 games to 1.263 with 13 RBIs and 13 runs scored.

His hustle out of the batter’s box in the third inning prevented an inning-ending double play (upon a successful challenge from Melvin) and allowed Ramos to score the second run of the inning, opening a 2-0 lead that would have been more than than enough the last time Snell took the mound.

In 1938, Vander Meer became the only pitcher in major-league history to throw back-to-back no-hitters, and Snell’s chances of becoming the second didn’t last long into his first start since no-hitting the Reds on 114 pitches on Friday.

After tossing the first complete game of his career, it was back to Snell’s regularly scheduled programming against the Nationals, who struggled to square him up but still ran up his pitch count enough to force him from the game after six innings.

Striking out eight while allowing three runs on four hits — two on Juan Yepez’s third-inning homer to left field — Snell lost his no-hit bid on the third batter of the game, when Yepez rolled a changeup off the end of his bat toward first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr.

The ball was struck at only 54.8 mph but resulted in the first hit Snell had allowed in 43 batters, dating back to his 15-strikeout performance against the Rockies on July 27, when he got turned around covering the bag and wasn’t able to handle Wade’s toss.

After Erik Miller put three men on base in the seventh, including a one-out triple to Riley Adams that started the trouble, Ryan Walker was required to walk the tightrope to escape a bases-loaded situation and ensure the offense’s effort and Snell’s quality start didn’t go to waste.

Representing the go-ahead run, Yepez stepped to the plate again with two hits already and worked a full count, looking at a backdoor sinker that just missed the outside corner for ball three. The next pitch, Walker fired a slider past his bat and into Patrick Bailey’s glove set up on the outside corner for strike three to end the inning, stranding three runners on base.

Up next

The Giants send LHP Kyle Harrison (6-4, 3.69) to the mound against fellow southpaw DJ Herz (2-4, 4.27) in the series finale, looking to secure their second road series win in a row and their first series win against the Nationals since 2022. With inclement weather moving into the area, first pitch was moved up to 9:05 a.m. PT from the originally scheduled 1:05 p.m. PT.