SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants held meetings. They pored over the film and the analytics. They altered their lineup. They altered their approach. They tried everything, and nothing seemed to work.
When they sit down in the offseason and do the postmortem on a year that fell short of expectations, there will be a lot of ways to place blame. But they will have to make sure that a small piece of the pie is saved for Merrill Kelly.
Kelly is a nondescript 33-year-old right-hander, but he has become a lesser known member of the Giant Killer group that also includes superstars like Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, and rivals like Max Muncy.
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Entering Friday night's game, the Giants had faced Kelly five times, the maximum. They had scored six total runs, losing three of those games to a Diamondbacks team that never sniffed contention.
Before their last look at Kelly this season, manager Gabe Kapler was asked if they could finally figure him out the sixth time around. He laughed and pointed out that the Giants had a secret weapon.
"It's really an interesting challenge," Kapler said. "I will say this: (It's a) big advantage not being in Arizona because of his walk-out song, which is absolutely fire. One of the best walk-out songs in baseball. It's such an advantage. Of course he's having that sort of success with that walk-out song."
When at Chase Field, Kelly warms up to "Ante Up" by M.O.P. (it is indeed a banger), but all he heard early on Friday was the cheering of a rowdy Friday night crowd at Oracle Park. The Giants scored four runs off Kelly in the first and three more in the second, jumping way out in front in a game they went on to win 10-4.
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The victory was the 10th in 11 games for the Giants, who remain mathematically alive. It continued a theme for September, too, as the Giants have spent several weeks cleaning up a lot of the issues that will keep them out of the postseason. The defense has been much better this month and the bullpen is again a strength. Now, the Giants can say they also figured out Kelly, at least for one night.
"I really liked the aggressiveness of our hitters tonight," Kapler said. "I think they were looking for pitches in the middle of the plate. They got those pitches -- maybe that was the biggest difference, Kelly made more mistakes than he generally does in the middle of the plate and we were able to take advantage of those."
Most of the early offense came from Evan Longoria, who homered twice in the first two innings for the second time this season. Joc Pederson provided the highlight of the night with a triple that turned into a run when he ran through a stop sign and took advantage of an error, sliding in just ahead of the throw home.
Mike Yastrzemski added his 16th homer of the season and Austin Wynns hit his third.
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The night was particularly special for Longoria, who has spent most of the last three seasons away from his wife and three young children, who live in the Phoenix area. They were all at Oracle Park on Friday and Longoria spent most of batting practice hanging out with them on the field. He laughed after the game and said his kids only care if the Giants win or lose, but it certainly doesn't hurt when their dad has a huge night.
"Any time they're around is special no matter how the game goes," he said. "That's kind of the beauty of non-baseball stuff is being able to go home and they don't care how well I do, but when I have nights like tonight and obviously they're in the stands and they're excited and we win the game, it makes for a really fun night."