Jung Hoo Lee, Robbie Ray play starring roles in Giants’ win over A’s

SAN FRANCISCO — Jung Hoo Lee was on the delivering and receiving end of two hard blows. Ultimately, the one he dealt proved to be more powerful.

Lee crushed the longest home run of his career, clearing the fence in Triples Alley, the deepest part of Oracle Park, to get the Giants on the board first in a 3-1 win over the A’s to open their series Tuesday.

“I never thought I was going to hit a home run [there],” Lee said in Korean through a team interpreter.

Then came the inadvertent revenge.

After Lee reached base for a third time, drawing a walk in the sixth, he bolted for second base. When he arrived, he was met by the elbow of second baseman Jeff McNeil, whose momentum attempting to corral the wide throw took him into the path of Lee’s slide.

Lee’s initial reaction sent a scare through the sellout crowd of 40,043 that the throw had possibly nailed the portion of his head unprotected by his helmet. It turned out that it was McNeil’s arm that got his face.

Count manager Tony Vitello among those fooled.

“We thought the ball hit him,” Vitello said. “That probably would’ve been more painful than the elbow. But McNeil’s elbow just kind of inadvertently got his jaw and rung his bell for a little bit.”

Vitello, a trainer and Lee’s interpreter rushed from the dugout to second base, where Lee remained motionless for an extended period. He was, it turned out, just shaken up.

“He knocked me out,” Lee joked. “K.O.”

That blow was, apparently, no match for the one he gave to a cutter that caught all of the plate from Aaron Civale with one out in the second. Lee’s fifth homer of the season traveled 414 feet, 40 feet further than his longest homer to date this season. His career long had previously been 406 feet.

“That’s a tough part of the park to go out,” admired starter Robbie Ray, who hugged Lee after he made an error in right field that resulted in the only run the A’s managed against him over eight innings.

“He came in and said he was sorry [about the error] and I was like, ‘That’s my guy, we’re good.’ … He made some great plays in the field today too. The wind was playing tricks out there.”

The solo shot got the Giants’ bats in business, as Willy Adames followed with a double and came around to score, opening a 2-0 lead, on a line drive from Matt Chapman off the wall in left.

Chapman punished the pitch so hard — 112.1 mph, tied for his second-best hit ball of the year — that he was out by a mile when he tried to take second on the play.

Bryce Eldridge hustled, or more like huffed, home to barely beat the throw on a single from Rafael Devers to pad the lead in the seventh after using an ABS challenge to draw a walk.

Lee wasn’t the only victim of what proved to be a physical game.

Both second basemen were forced to leave early, with Luis Arraez departing after fouling a pitch off his shin and Zack Gelof getting spiked in the hand by Chapman.

What it means

The Giants began their home stand with a much-needed win, following a sweep at the hands of the Marlins to end their road trip that sent them 15 games below .500.

Who’s hot

Ray walked four batters but didn’t let any come back to bite him and largely cruised through eight innings, the only damage coming on an unearned run after Lee flubbed an easy fly ball in right field, resulting in the first batter of the third reaching and coming around to score.

Ray, who had trouble getting through five innings earlier this year, turned in his second-longest start with the Giants and easily his best effort of the season.

“Obviously the walks tonight [were] not ideal, so that’s something I need to work on,” Ray said. “But even though those walks happened, I was able to come back and … get the next guy. I think the two-seam has helped out my arsenal a lot.”

There were signs a breakthrough was coming, though.

The two-hit effort from Ray marked the third time in four starts this month that he didn’t surrender a single earned run. In the one outing he was hit around, he didn’t issue a walk.

It all began when Ray started swapping out his four-seamer at the top of the strike zone for a sinking two-seamer. He used it on 20 of his 102 pitches against the A’s.

“Just the combination of all my pitches, I feel like was pretty unpredictable tonight,” said Ray, who threw all five of his offerings at least 12 times but none more than 27. “I felt like the two-seam was really good. I got some early outs with it. Changeup was good. I think everything was just playing well off each other.”

After posting a 6.44 ERA in May, Ray improved to 3-0 with a 1.80 ERA so far in June.

Who’s not

It was shaping up to be a revenge game for Daniel Susac, the catcher the Giants selected in the Rule 5 draft after the A’s left the former 28th overall pick unprotected.

Upon review, not so much.

Susac struck out three times, lowering his batting average in 24 games since returning from the injured list to .205. He was hitting .407 with an 1.152 OPS when he was diagnosed with neuritis in his right elbow on April 20; his batting average now is down to .267 with his OPS at .652, barely better than Patrick Bailey’s .633 mark with the Guardians.

The A’s determined he posed such little threat that, with two outs and a runner on second in the sixth, they intentionally walked the light-hitting No. 8 batter Drew Gilbert to bring up Susac.

It proved to be a prescient choice. The at-bat ended the same way as the previous two — strike three.

Up next

Tyler Mahle makes his return to the Giants’ rotation as they continue their three-game series against their former Bay Area rivals on Wednesday. Mahle, out since May 29 with a hamstring strain, was 1-7 with a 6.04 ERA when he landed on the injured list.

The Giants will have to make a roster move to activate him from the IL.