Luis Gonzalez hit his first major league home run with one aboard in the top of the ninth inning to give the San Francisco Giants a 4-2 victory over the Brewers on Monday night in a one-game stopover in Milwaukee.
Wilmer Flores drew a two-out walk off Jake Cousins (2-1), who came on to start the ninth. Gonzalez then sent a 2-2 pitch over the wall in right. He was playing in his fourth big-league game of the season and the 13th of his career.
Camilo Doval, the eighth Giants pitcher used in a bullpen game, tossed a perfect ninth for his fourth save.
Willy Adames, who entered the day hitting .190, brought the Brewers even at 2-2 in the eighth with his second homer, a two-out solo shot to left-center off Jake McGee (1-1).
The Giants finished their 11-game road trip 8-3, their best winning percentage on a trip of 10 or more games since going 8-2 from July 14-24, 1994.
After managing just two hits and no runs in 6 2/3 innings against Brewers starter Corbin Burnes, Joc Pederson put the Giants up 2-1 in the top of the eighth with a two-run homer off Trevor Gott. Curt Casali lined a two-out double to left, and Pederson followed with his sixth home run, sending a 1-0 pitch 435 feet to right-center.
Burnes, the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner, allowed a first-inning single and then exited after giving up a two-out single to Gonzalez in the seventh. He walked two and hit a batter, while striking out 11 — his 14th career game of 10 or more strikeouts — as he lowered his ERA to 1.75.
Keston Hiura manufactured a small-ball run in the second to put Milwaukee up 1-0. Hiura beat out an infield single to third and took second on Lorenzo Cain’s sharp groundout to short. Hiura moved to third on an errant pickoff throw by Dominic Leone, then scored on Mike Brosseau’s two-out infield single to short.
The Giants’ single-game stop in Milwaukee was one of three rescheduled games from a series that was postponed due to the delayed start of the season following the lockout. The other two games from that series will be made up in a doubleheader on Sept. 8.
The Brewers head to Pittsburgh for three games against the Pirates starting Tuesday, while the Giants continue home for a two-game series against the Oakland A’s.
–Field Level Media