With the Giants in desperate need of a quality start, Keaton Winn delivered in a big way by tossing six strong innings in San Francisco's 3-1 win over the Miami Marlins on Wednesday at LoanDepot Park.
The 26-year-old (1-3) allowed four hits and one run across his six innings of work, striking out four and walking just one batter en route to his first win of the 2024 MLB season.
Following the victory, Winn shared that he finally was able to get into a rhythm, building off a solid start in his last outing where he allowed only two runs across five innnings despite taking the loss in a 2-1 defeat to the Tampa Bay Rays.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
"Finally felt great out there," Winn told reporters in the visiting clubhouse. "[Patrick Bailey] did a great job; everybody behind me did a great job behind me too. I had some hard hit balls that had plays made on them, so it felt really great."
Winn's lone earned run came from a Bryan De La Cruz home run in the bottom of the sixth inning, the only glaring mistake the 26-year-old was responsible for during Wednesday's start.
Winn explained how his intention was to go inside, but the ball ended up going down and away, turning into a costly location mistake in what was an otherwise stellar outing from the right-handed pitcher.
"He's [De La Cruz] been kind of hot in the last couple games that area, so later in the count I was trying to go [inside] and just kind of missed down and away," Winn shared.
San Francisco Giants
Catcher Patrick Bailey weighed in on Winn's dominant outing, citing how the 26-year-old was able to avoid the disaster innings that had plagued his earlier starts during the 2024 MLB season.
"Yeah he was filling it up with all four pitches today," Bailey explained on "Giants Postgame Live." "I felt like he's thrown the ball really well all year, just had a couple [of] bad innings in each start. But today he was unbelievable to go six [innings] and just give up one [run] against this lineup. A good feat for sure and hopefully he can keep building off this and just keep building his confidence."
While addressing reporters after the win, manager Bob Melvin lauded Winn's ability to eat up quality innings with San Francisco missing a handful of key arms in the series finale against Miami.
"We needed some innings today, we were down several guys, [he] gave us six innings, really efficient in how he did it too," Melvin told reporters after Wednesday's win. "Just pitched a great game when we needed him to."
Wednesday's win secured the Giants a series victory over the Marlins and gave San Francisco a .500 record on their six-game Florida road trip before returning home for a pivotal four-game series against the NL West-rival Arizona Diamondbacks at Oracle Park.
At 8-11, the Giants sit in fourth place in a loaded NL West, but have a prime opportunity to make up ground against the Diamondbacks (9-9) to kickoff a 10-game homestand that includes three-game series against the New York Mets and Pittsburgh Pirates.
Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast