SAN FRANCISCO — It had been years since Keaton Winn last walked on or off a pitcher’s mound past the sixth inning, so he soaked in the reception he got Monday night when manager Bob Melvin came to get him two batters into the seventh.
Rising to their feet, the 24,138 on hand cheered and saluted the strongest effort of the 26-year-old right-hander’s young career.
“That felt really good,” Winn said after tossing six-plus innings of one-run ball in the Giants’ 5-2 win to open their series against the Mets. “That was the first time I’ve had that. I can’t explain how good that felt, to feel like the city has your back. It was great.”
A solo shot from Pete Alonso was all that prevented Winn from facing the minimum through six innings, and Melvin only came out with the hook after Winn allowed the first two batters of the seventh to reach base. He didn’t issue his first walk until his final hitter, Francisco Lindor, and finished six-plus innings on 87 pitches, limiting the Mets to four hits and striking out six.
“His mindset is to pitch as long as he can,” Melvin said. “He’s a really good young pitcher. When you only walk on against that lineup, give up four hits, pretty good outing.”
It was the first time in 14 major-league appearances that Winn had pitched into the seventh inning and the first time since 2019, when he was in Single-A and before he had undergone Tommy John surgery, that he had pitched past the sixth inning, at all.
“It was nice to go back out there,” Winn said. “I wish I could have gotten an out in the seventh inning, but I was trying to be too perfect. It’s a learning moment, for sure.”
Entering Monday, Winn had received the fifth-least run support of any starter in the National League entering, so it wasn’t just pitching deep that was a novel concept for him but also pitching with a lead, which he was able to do after Nick Ahmed and Matt Chapman built an early lead with a pair of timely base hits.
“We’ve had our share of big hits, maybe not as many as we’d like,” Melvin said, “but early in the game, to have that kind of lead, it’s been a while. We don’t do it enough. It’s a much better feeling as the game goes along.”
Ahmed’s two-out, two-RBI single in the second inning gave the Giants a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
The No. 9 hitter stepped into the box with two outs after Tom Murphy watched strike three. He swung at the first pitch and missed extra bases by inches, sending a fastball just foul off the left-field wall. But two pitches later, he got another heater that he drove up the middle.
The heart of the order picked up the slack the next inning, as Matt Chapman lined a two-RBI double to extend the Giants’ lead to 4-0, though the burden only fell on his shoulders after Jorge Soler struck out looking with Jung Hoo Lee and Wilmer Flores on base.
Lee’s single extended his on-base streak to 13 games, raising his batting average to .284 and OPS to .729. Chapman is batting .226 with a .710 OPS, and Soler added a pair of singles in his other chances to improve his average to .250 and OPS to .787.
Entering Monday’s game, the Giants’ three biggest free-agent additions — Chapman, Soler and Lee, with $209 million guaranteed between them — had been hitting .200 (12-for-60) in prime scoring opportunities, and the team as a whole hadn’t fared much better, its .236 average with runners in scoring position in the bottom third of the majors.
The two hits were the only ones the Giants got in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position but were all they needed.
Conforto ended Quintana’s evening and tacked on an insurance run to lead off the sixth with a solo shot to right field, sending a first-pitch curveball on to the Levi’s Landing concourse an estimated 375 feet away. It was his fifth of the season, a total six other teams are still waiting for a player to reach.
