Giants score 2 runs off Dennis Santana in 9th inning to beat Pirates, win series

A week after being swept at home by the Pittsburgh Pirates, the San Francisco Giants came to PNC Park and nearly returned the favor.

The Giants tied the score in the eighth inning against Isaac Mattson and scored two runs in the ninth off Dennis Santana for a 4-2 win Wednesday afternoon before a crowd of 14,005 to take two out of three games in the series.

Only a walk-off win by the Pirates on Monday night prevented a San Francisco sweep.

The series taxed the Pirates bullpen, which had to cover eight innings in Monday’s 5-4 win, 4¹⁄₃ innings in Tuesday’s 8-1 loss and the final 4¹⁄₃ innings after Andrew Heaney faced only 18 batters.

So Pirates manager Don Kelly was quick to defend his relievers.

“Mattson and Santana have been so good for us,” Kelly said. “It’s hard to blame them at all for what happened.”

Heaney got out of a first-inning jam after Heliot Ramos hit a leadoff single and Rafael Devers was hit by a pitch. With runners on the corners, Heaney got Matt Chapman to fly out to right and Casey Schmitt to center to escape unscathed.

“First pitch of the game, gave up a single. I’m going to try and throw it right down the middle. If you put a good swing on it, you’re probably going to get a hit,” Heaney said. “Then just a ball that slipped out of my hands, so I didn’t look at it as I’m on the ropes or anything. It was kind of one pitch exactly where I wanted it, guy put a good swing on it, and one pitch that, obviously, just slipped out. Getting out of it with no runs is great. That helps settle the nerves a little bit. Just another first inning.”

Giants lefty Robbie Ray didn’t fare as well. He walked the first two batters he faced before Bryan Reynolds grounded into a 6-4-3 double play. Liover Peguero advanced to third, however, and scored on a single to left by Nick Gonzales to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead in the first inning.

Heaney retired 12 consecutive batters until Jerar Encarnacion tied the score in the fifth with a leadoff homer — his second in as many games — by driving a 2-0 fastball 442 feet to the second deck of the left-field bleachers.

The Pirates are 1-5 in Heaney’s past six starts, and he admitted that it’s been a grind. Since July 7 at Kansas City, the 34-year-old lefty has a 7.36 ERA, nine strikeouts against five walks and has surrendered eight homers. It was his sixth consecutive start of five innings or fewer.

“I haven’t been good for basically a month now,” Heaney said. “So I think there’s elements of trying to prevent damage, trying to find places to get to the bullpen, things like that.”

The Pirates took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the fifth when Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a leadoff single, stole second base, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on a sacrifice fly by Tommy Pham.

The Giants loaded the bases against Mattson in the eighth, when pinch-hitter Patrick Bailey hit a leadoff single, Devers drew a one-out walk and Willy Adames dropped a bloop single into right. The Pirates brought in Santana, but the Giants tied it on a sacrifice fly to left by Chapman that scored Bailey.

With two outs, Gonzales and Andrew McCutchen hit successive singles to put the go-ahead run in scoring position. Oneil Cruz pinch-hit for Joey Bart and worked a full count before Ryan Walker got him swinging at a 95-mph sinker at the top of the zone to end the scoring threat.

In the ninth, Jung Hoo Lee doubled to the right-field corner and scored on a double to the same spot by pinch hitter Dominic Smith to give the Giants a 3-2 lead. Bailey lined a single to right to drive in Smith to extend the lead to 4-2.

“That’s asking a lot, for him to come in and get five outs,” Kelly said. “Just hoping to get a ground ball right there, to maybe get out of that (eighth) inning with one pitch. Yeah, the bullpen has been taxed. They’ve thrown a lot of innings, and they’ve done a really good job keeping us in games and giving us a chance to win a lot of games.”