Giants rally late to top Brewers, take series

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants at times have been hard-pressed for lucky bounces amid a disappointing season. But Jarrett Parker -- whose own season took an unlucky turn when he fractured his collarbone in April -- found a stroke of good fortune Wednesday when he tried to check his swing, but instead made contact and dropped a two-run double down the left-field line to help the Giants top the Brewers, 4-2.
Pinch-hitter Denard Span got the seventh-inning rally started when he doubled. A batter later, Gorkys Hernández got aboard when Brewers reliever Jacob Barnes misfired a pitch to hit Hernandez. Parker's hit, which registered an exit velocity of 61.6 mph according to Statcast™, helped the Giants take the series win.
"You hear good things happen when you put the ball in play," San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy said. "He did. I don't think that's the swing he was looking for on the first pitch, but it's a break for us, we'll take it. It went our way there on that check swing, which you take. We've had some tough breaks, so we'll take it."

Brewers starter Matt Garza (aka "The Count" for Players Weekend) posted a solid effort after a string of tough starts. He spun five innings of one-run ball while allowing five hits after allowing 18 earned runs over his previous 13 innings. Along the way, he lowered his ERA at AT&T Park to 2.49 in four career starts.
"It's nice to be back on track, but [it's too bad] that we didn't get the W," Garza said.
Giants starter Matt Moore (aka "Matty Moe" for Players Weekend), on the heels of breaking a career-high five-game losing streak, delivered six-plus innings, allowing one run on Travis Shaw's first-inning double.

"For us to come in here and kind of ruin someone's day in three days, it's something for us moving forward that we can build on as a club," Moore said.
In the ninth, Shaw fouled a ball off his foot and drew a walk, but Jesús Aguilar grounded into a double play. X-rays on Shaw's foot, taken after the game, came back negative. Stephen Vogt added a pinch-hit homer in the next at-bat, the first of his career, but the Brewers couldn't rally off Giants closer Sam Dyson, who picked up his 12th save.

Milwaukee is 3 1/2 games back of the Cubs in the National League Central race and also 3 1/2 games behind the Rockies for the second Wild Card spot.
"We just didn't do enough today," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. "Pitched well. Their bullpen did a nice job. We just couldn't push that run across."

MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Tacking on: The Giants haven't been the best at getting insurance runs this season, but they picked up a key one in the eighth inning when Brandon Crawford scored on Carlos Moncrief's sacrifice fly. Crawford and Pablo Sandoval got the inning started with back-to-back singles and both advanced on a wild pitch by Carlos Torres.

A silent sixth: The Brewers got out to a fast start in the sixth. Jonathan Villar singled to center and Domingo Santana followed that up with a single. With the Giants' bullpen in motion, Moore shut down the Crew, inducing a flyout and two groundouts from the heart of the Brewers' order.

QUOTABLE
"If the hitter could have grabbed the ball and thrown it, he couldn't have put it in a better spot than where he did. Especially on the check swing. That's the craziest part about it." -- Barnes, on Parker's go-ahead RBI double
SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS
Parker's double, hit at 61.6 mph, according to Statcast™, was the second-softest extra-base hit by a Giants player this season. Kelby Tomlinson had a 54.9-mph double down the right-field line against the Rockies in June.
WHAT'S NEXT
Brewers: The Crew has Thursday off before opening a series with the red-hot Dodgers Friday in a 9:10 p.m. CT contest in Los Angeles. Chase Anderson (aka "Texas" for Players Weekend) will make his second start since returning from the disabled list. He will battle right-hander Kenta Maeda (11-5, 3.88 ERA).
Giants:Ty Blach (aka "The Preacher" for Players Weekend) faces the D-backs in the opener of a three-game series in Arizona on Friday night at 6:40 p.m. PT. Blach (8-9, 4.59 ERA) has allowed 12 earned runs over his past two starts, covering 11 1/3 innings.
Watch every out-of-market regular-season game live on MLB.TV.