Rookie Hayden Birdsong combined with four relievers on a four-hitter as the San Francisco Giants completed a doubleheader sweep over the visiting Colorado Rockies with a 5-0 victory in the nightcap Saturday night.
Birdsong (3-0), Sean Hjelle, Taylor Rogers, Erik Miller and Spencer Bivens combined for 13 strikeouts after Blake Snell and three relievers teamed for 17 in a 4-1 win in the opener.
According to the Giants, the 30 strikeouts were the most by Giants pitchers in a doubleheader since the stat was first logged in 1901.
Birdsong pitched the first five innings of the Giants’ fifth shutout of the season, limiting the Rockies to three singles and three walks. The eight strikeouts were his second-most, trailing only his 12 in his previous start, against the Rockies last Sunday.
The Giants needed just nine pitches by Rockies starter Tanner Gordon to take the lead for good when Jorge Soler singled and Mike Yastrzemski followed with a triple to right field.
The hosts added a run in the second on consecutive doubles by Matt Chapman and Brett Wisely, doubled the advantage on a sacrifice fly by Yastrzemski and RBI single by Heliot Ramos in the fifth and capped the scoring on a solo homer by Tyler Fitzgerald in the eighth.
The home run by Fitzgerald was his ninth of the season, eight of which have come in the last 10 games.
Promoted from the minors for the doubleheader, Gordon (0-3) was charged with four runs on nine hits in six innings. He struck out five and did not walk anyone.
The Giants’ bullpen allowed just one hit, a ninth-inning single by Brendan Rodgers, over the final four innings.
Soler collected two doubles, a single and two runs for the Giants, who have won three in a row in the wake of a 2-5 trip that included dropping two of three in Colorado.
Wisely chipped in with a double and a single as part of an 11-hit attack.
–Field Level Media