Giants’ fortunes begin to turn with consecutive shutouts of Phillies

SAN FRANCISCO — The only thing harder to come by than a winning streak for Tony Vitello’s squad has been days where they send the home fans happy.

How about two birds with one stone?

With back-to-back shutouts by their pitching staff and a lineup that suddenly showed some thump, the Giants secured consecutive wins at Oracle Park for the first time this year.

Maybe, just maybe, the Giants’ fortunes are starting to turn.

“It’d be awesome to be in a better situation, but I think we found some things out about ourselves that can be valuable in the long run,” the first-year manager said after San Francisco’s 5-0 win on Wednesday secured the series against the Phillies. “And we’re also playing pretty good ball right now.”

Tyler Mahle led the Giants’ second shutout effort in a row but left the game with the score still knotted at zero. The vibes shifted as soon as Rafael Devers squared up the first pitch he saw from Aaron Nola with two outs and two on in the bottom of the sixth.

Devers second home run of the season — and just his third extra-base hit — gave the Giants their first lead, and a group of four relievers protected it to earn Matt Gage his first career win.

The series win was their second of the season. Now, to do something they weren’t able to after taking two of three from the Padres in San Diego: Build on it.

“I could see the change in vibes when we got the lead,” Devers said through a team Spanish-language interpreter. “But that’s just in the moment. We realize as a team that things can change really quickly.”

And that’s the beauty of baseball.

Devers entered Wednesday batting below the Mendoza line and 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position. He grounded into a double play with two on and no outs in the fifth as San Francisco squandered a second prime scoring opportunity to keep the game scoreless.

“I know the type of hitter I am,” Devers said. “I don’t really dwell on how things are going. I just know that eventually, things will start clicking for me, especially, because I know the type of player I am.”

The Giants’ fortunes will likely hinge on Devers’ ability to anchor the middle of the order. Since acquiring him from the Red Sox last June, they have played 13 games below .500.

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If Devers can get going, in theory, so could the rest of the Giants’ lineup. They scored more than three runs in all three games against the Phillies, something they had done just twice in the 10 games entering the series.

“Only occasionally have I been in dugouts or heard players talk about a guy where they see him, they put him on a pedestal that’s different than others,” Vitello said of Devers.

Before Devers’ home run, there were some signs the Giants had luck on their side: Willy Adames started the inning with a double that fell between three defenders in shallow right field. Luis Arraez won an ABS challenge to draw his first walk of the year. And when Matt Chapman had back-to-back challenges go against him, Devers made sure those losses were quickly forgotten.

Other things that will help the Giants recover from an awful start that left them with the worst record in the National League: A bullpen that didn’t allow a run over 5 ⅔ innings to end the series, Mahle pitching into the sixth for the first time, a tough schedule starting to lighten up.

“Everyone’s kind of s—ing on us because we started out 3-7, or whatever,” said Mahle, who used an elite splitter to finish off four of his five strikeouts. “But it could have easily been a different story. I think we’re feeling good and ready to go have a good road trip.”

So far this season, the Giants have played four opponents with playoff hopes. Vitello said the other day that his club ran into a “buzzsaw” in their second game — Yankees starter Cam Schlittler — and had been trying to play catch up ever since. 

“The first (series) was disappointing. There’s no shaking it,” Vitello said. “We got over emotional, our emotions were too high, we built it up too much and then got too low. And we also just didn’t play well. And we got beat.”

The Giants’ minus-27 run differential through 10 games was by far the worst in the majors and the franchise’s worst start to a season in more than a century. But after back-to-back wins, that margin is beginning to come back to earth: minus-16, no longer the worst in baseball.

“You start out 0-3, and it feels like you’re running in sand a little bit,” Vitello said. “But if you had a magic power and were able to remove that, we just played a road series against a tough divisional opponent, we played two teams that I assume … are predicted to be in the hunt as playoff teams, and we won two of those series and played .500 ball if I’m not mistaken.”

Now, as they head east for the first time this year, they have a chance to make up some ground. A road trip against the Orioles, Reds and Nationals should present a better chance to rack up wins than their first 13 games against the Yankees, Padres, Mets and Phillies.

“Especially after being in a little rut there, (we played) the kind of baseball we know we can play,” Mahle said. “Putting up zeros, guys playing defense and all over the base paths. That’s what we can do on a normal basis, and it showed the last two nights.”