A rally capped by Casey Schmitt’s timely swing lifted the Giants past the Marlins 6-3. The win also carried signs of better plate discipline and lineup momentum.
SAN FRANCISCO — The swing came out so clean it lingered in the dugout after it landed, and Giants manager Tony Vitello made sure everyone heard about it.
With a 6-3 win over the Marlins on Sunday, the Giants weren’t just collecting another victory. They were stacking small, repeatable parts of a comeback—timing, patience, and the kind of middle-line push that has been missing at times.
A rally started with a different kind of at-bat
Casey Schmitt’s go-ahead home run in the seventh was the finish, but the earlier shift helped set the table.. The spark involved Rafael Devers, whose season-long slump has become a concern for reasons that show up even when he’s “just fighting.” Two soft outs in his first two at-bats hadn’t eased worries, but the sixth inning changed the tone.. After Schmitt drew a walk to lead off the frame, Devers fell behind 1-2, then drove the low-and-outside offering into the gap in left-center.
That swing mattered because it came when the Giants needed something to break the game open—not later, not in a vacuum, but in the middle of a stretch where they’d been trying to find consistent production.
Devers finds a gap shot as the lineup loosens
The ball off Devers’ bat reportedly reached 108.2 mph and stayed in play long enough to reach the wall, turning the at-bat into more than a “good try.” It also connected to the team’s broader storyline: in a six-game homestand, the Giants’ big bats haven’t fully clicked together yet, even after moments like Devers’ and Schmitt’s.
Schmitt scored from first on the RBI double, giving the Giants their first run from the heart of their lineup. It was a reminder that when pitches are chased less and contact is aimed better, the offense doesn’t have to depend on one hot hand.
Willy Adames, Matt Chapman, and the rest of the group have been searching for steadiness over the homestand, and Adames, in particular, has dealt with a rough stretch that led to Vitello giving him a day off.. Vitello framed it as general soreness and a grind of everyday starts—an ordinary baseball reason, but one that can still decide whether timing comes back quickly.
Patience becomes the under-the-radar advantage
If the headlines are about home runs and rallies, the quieter change has been plate approach.. The Giants are averaging a respectable .250 batting average, but their .295 on-base percentage has been a swing factor—especially because it has historically lagged.. Lately, the gap has been shrinking, and it’s not hard to see why.. Against Miami, the Giants worked walks and got on base 11 times via free passes, their most in any series this season.
Vitello has called that an emphasis in hitters’ meetings, and you can feel the intent in the at-bats.. Schmitt’s decisive swing was preceded by a walk in his earlier trip, and Chapman explained the thinking: rather than trying to force a walk, the goal was to tighten early contact and stay disciplined to pitches the hitters actually want.
In practical terms, that approach helps in two ways. First, it reduces the number of at-bats that end quickly on soft contact. Second, it shifts pressure onto pitchers—more pitches, more counts, more opportunities to put together damage when the game opens up.
Momentum after tough starts, including early deficits
The win also fits into a broader recovery arc.. The Giants entered the day having struggled in games where opponents scored first, and they’d recently gone stretches without winning consecutive series.. But they managed to take two of three from the Dodgers earlier, then bounced back after losses that snapped momentum against the Marlins.
On Saturday and Sunday, the pattern looked different from earlier in the season: when they fell behind, they found a way to answer.. They trailed 3-0 entering the sixth on Sunday before the offense started to move, and that reversal is hard to fake.. It requires enough patience at the plate to create traffic and enough timing to turn traffic into runs.
Why this “growing up” could matter more than a single homestand
Vitello’s “we’re growing up” message isn’t just motivational language. Early-season slumps tend to be stubborn, but the way a team responds—how it manufactures innings when the big swings aren’t immediately there—often predicts whether a roster is ready to separate from its problems.
The Giants’ middle-of-the-order production hasn’t fully caught up to the expectations tied to their salary and reputation, and on paper their OPS numbers still show the gap.. Yet the direction is visible: better sequencing, more walks, and fewer wasted early swings.. Jung Hoo Lee also contributed by reaching base multiple times, keeping pressure on Miami even when the biggest hits weren’t coming back-to-back.
For now, the immediate takeaway is simple.. The Giants can’t ignore the slump concerns around players like Devers, and they still need more from the offense as a whole.. But after this run of wins—three series in a row clinched—the message is that the group is learning how to win in ways that don’t require perfect baseball.
Next, the challenge is consistency: carrying the plate patience into the next stretch, not just using it to survive a homestand. If that part sticks, the “growing up” Vitello talked about may start looking less like a quote and more like a pattern.