Nootbaar's 432-Foot Bomb Buries SF as Kelly Dominates

Lars Nootbaar needed just one at-bat to wreck this game, launching a 432-foot grand slam in the seventh that swung San Francisco's win probability from 37% to 6% in a single swing. Merrill Kelly did the rest, and Arizona walked away with a 7-1 final.

For six innings, Matt Wilkinson kept Arizona honest — 3 hits, 2 earned runs, 4 strikeouts over 6.0 innings is a respectable line. But the game was still within reach for San Francisco heading into the seventh, and that's when Nootbaar ended the conversation. His homer to right — 432 feet, four runs, one swing — scored Moreno, Arenado, and Tawa to put Arizona up 4-0. The win probability swung from 37% to 6% on that single play. Game over, effectively.

The story of the night was Merrill Kelly, who looks like he was operating at a different level than everyone else on the field. Seven innings, 2 hits, zero earned runs, 7 strikeouts — that's a performance that makes a 4-0 lead feel like 10-0. Arizona kept adding anyway. In the eighth, Perdomo singled to left to score Carroll and push it to 5-0, even if Perdomo got thrown out at first on the play. San Francisco scratched one back when Lee singled to right to score Devers, making it 5-1, but that was the extent of the damage. Seth Lonsway came on for the Giants in the ninth and gave up 5 hits and 2 earned runs — Lawlar singled to left to score Tawa, and a Vargas groundout into a double play somehow plated Barrosa for the final run. Arizona's offense was relentless even when it wasn't pretty.

Gabriel Moreno went 2-for-3 and scored a run. Rafael Devers went 2-for-4 for San Francisco, but Jung Hoo Lee's 2-for-3 with an RBI was the lone bright spot in an otherwise bleak night for the Giants' offense. Brandyn Garcia closed it out for Arizona with a clean ninth — 1.0 IP, no hits, no walks, one strikeout. Arizona's pitching staff combined to allow 1 run on 2 hits through seven innings before the Giants managed anything at all. That's the kind of performance that appears to reflect a team playing with real purpose down the stretch of August.