WASHINGTON—Heliot Ramos and Matt Chapman hit fifth-inning solo home runs to break open a tie game, and the San Francisco Giants beat the Washington Nationals 7–4 on Wednesday night.
Ramos homered for the second straight game, and Chapman finished a triple short of the cycle for the Giants, who have won nine of their past 12 games. Mike Yastrzemski added a solo homer and an RBI triple.
San Francisco has homered 15 times over its past six games.
“It makes a huge impact,” Giants Manager Bob Melvin said of the power surge. “When you’re not having to string a ton of hits together, and situationally we haven’t been great lately, so those homers have a big impact in the game, put a lot of energy in our dugout.”
Blake Snell (2–3), coming off a no-hitter at Cincinnati in his previous start, gave up three runs on four hits over six innings, retiring the last nine hitters he faced. He had allowed only two earned runs total in five starts since coming off the injured list. Snell, who struck out eight and walked one, threw 93 pitches.
“Had to battle sweat today,” Snell said of the hot, humid Washington weather. “It was tough. Made pitching a lot harder than it needed to be, but found ways to make a quality start out of it, so that’s good. Felt good, just had to battle a lot more because of that.”
The Nationals loaded the bases against San Francisco closer Camilo Doval with one out in the bottom of the ninth, but Doval got Alex Call to ground into a double play for his 22nd save.
“We got the winning run up to the plate, and I was just trying to move the line,” said Call, who crashed into the wall making a leaping catch to end the top of the ninth inning. “Didn’t work out.”
Juan Yepez had two hits, including a homer, for the Nationals.
Washington’s Jake Irvin (8–10) gave up five runs on eight hits—three of them home runs—over five innings.
“The execution was terrible, and they took advantage of it,” Irvin said.
CJ Abrams singled home a run in the seventh to pull the Nationals within 7–4, and Washington loaded the bases with two outs before reliever Ryan Walker struck out Yepez.
The Nationals took a 3–2 lead against Snell in the third when Call singled home Jacob Young, and Yepez followed with his third home run.
Yastrzemski tied it with a solo shot in the fourth.
With one out in the fifth, Ramos hit his 17th home run of the season, and one out later, Chapman hit his 19th of the year. Ramos has homered in consecutive games after missing two with a jammed right thumb.
“It’s still there, for sure,” Ramos said of the thumb issue, “but mentally, I just want to stay aggressive. If I don’t stay aggressive, I don’t have a chance. If I stay aggressive, I know I will be fine.”
