Donovan Solano goes 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, saves the day anyway in Giants’ 3-2 win

Donovan Solano, known to Giants teammates as “Donnie Barrels,” has an innate ability to find the sweet spot of the bat and pepper the diamond with base hits.

So on a day when Solano went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, no one expected him to be the team’s offensive savior. It’s a sign of how well the Giants are pitching and how poorly they’re hitting that Solano was able to earn that label anyway.

In top of the 10th inning at Petco Park, Solano didn’t find the barrel, but he did deliver the game-winning swing as his 294-foot flyball was barely deep enough to bring home Alex Dickerson for a go-ahead sacrifice fly.

Dickerson, who began the 10th inning on second base, advanced to third base on an Austin Slater flyball for the first out before holding on a Mike Yastrzemski infield single. When Solano’s flyball reached Myers’ glove in right, the Giants’ left fielder raced to the plate and narrowly beat an on-target throw from the outfield.

After right-hander Tyler Rogers surrendered a game-tying home run to Padres right fielder Wil Myers in the bottom of the eighth, Giants left-handers Jake McGee and Wandy Peralta pitched perfect ninth and 10th innings to cap off a 3-2 win and secure a hard-earned series victory.

With a pitching matchup featuring Kevin Gausman and Blake Snell, the Giants and Padres entered Wednesday’s rubber match at Petco Park expecting runs to come at a premium. The way the Giants have swung the bat this week, it’s almost stunning they were able to take two of three from a loaded San Diego Padres squad.

“Any time you face a guy that’s won a Cy Young, you want to beat him,” Gausman said of matching up with Snell. “You definitely elevate your game a little bit more.”

Rogers’ eighth-inning miscue came following a brilliant outing from Gausman, who was “Cain’d” for the second straight start to open the year. Despite pitching well and handing the ball to his bullpen with a lead, Gausman didn’t receive much offensive support and didn’t earn a win for his efforts, which happened to Matt Cain throughout the best seasons of his Giants career.

“When you have that guy on the mound, you know you’re going to be in the game no matter what,” left fielder Darin Ruf said. “Luckily we scored just enough runs to get the win.”

When the Giants extended a one-year, $18.9 million qualifying offer to Gausman at the beginning of the offseason, they did so with the belief the right-hander had ace-like potential. So far this season, he’s lived up to those expectations.

Gausman never recorded more than 19 outs in a start with San Francisco last season, but he got 20 against the Mariners on Opening Night in Seattle before completing a full 7.0 innings (21 outs) on Wednesday against the Padres. Giants manager Gabe Kapler had Gausman bat for himself to lead off the top of the seventh and while he looked lost at the plate as a hitter, he made sure San Diego’s lineup didn’t have a comfortable afternoon either.

The Padres recorded four hits and walked just once against the Giants right-hander, who racked up five strikeouts and set the franchise record for the most strikeouts by a pitcher in his first 12 starts. Gausman’s 86 strikeouts surpassed the 85 right-hander Red Ames had in 12 starts that spanned the 1903 and 1904 seasons.

Gausman’s velocity was down during spring training and he only touched 96 miles per hour on the radar gun twice against Seattle, but he alleviated any concerns at Petco Park by surpassing that threshold on 14 of his 96 pitches on Wednesday and maxing out his four-seamer at 97.7 miles per hour.

“I think (velocity) is one of those things that once you get everything in line and get your consistent delivery, then you’re usually going to see what it’s going to be,” Gausman said.

Gausman threw 53 fastballs against the Padres, but it was the 24 splitters he mixed in that made him so effective. The splitter has always been the starter’s best offering and he generated nine whiffs on 15 swings against the pitch. Of the four splitters the Padres did put in play, only Luis Campusano’s 106.5 mile per hour groundout in the fifth inning registered as a hard-hit ball.

“That’s such a big pitch for me and it plays so well off my fastball,” Gausman said. “I throw it against righties and lefties and I always feel like when that pitch is going good, I can face anybody.”

After homering over the center-field fence against lefty Adrián Morejón on Monday, Ruf came to the plate in the second inning Wednesday and drilled another pitch toward deep center field. San Diego’s Jorge Mateo had an excellent read on the flyball and jumped in front of the wall in an effort to take away extra bases from Ruf, but the ball bounced out of his glove, onto the top of the fence and beyond the field of play for a two-run home run.

“(Snell) is a great pitcher, four plus pitches that he can throw at any point so after the first fastball, my eyes were kind of looking for that and luckily he threw it again,” Ruf said. “Middle-in, middle-up a little bit and I was able to pull my hands inside and get the barrel to it.”

The home run marked the 11th homer hit by the Giants this season, but only the second with a runner on base. The swing from Ruf was particularly well-timed, too, as the only other hit Snell gave up in Wednesday’s series finale came earlier in the inning when third baseman Evan Longoria yanked a double off the base of the left-field wall.

The Giants’ offense didn’t fare well against San Diego’s starters this week, but they were able to grind out long at-bats against Snell, who was pulled after five innings and 87 pitches on a day when Gausman was the better starter.