Giants offense explodes in 12-9 win over Brewers

MILWAUKEE — Gary Pettis must be so confused.Since he arrived two days ago, the Giants have looked nothing like a team that was floundering so badly it needed to bring in a new third-base coach just two months into the season.They’ve strung together two complete, generally clean efforts in a row — an accomplishment for a team that hasn’t won more than three consecutive games in any fashion all year.And it has come against no slouch.Casey Schmitt slugged his 13th home run of the season on the first pitch from Brewers starter Coleman Crow and the Giants kept on hitting enough to survive a subpar start from Adrian Houser against his former team, knocking off the NL Central leaders Thursday afternoon for the second straight game, 12-9, to claim a split of the four-game set.Catcher Eric Haase, another former Brewer, added a cherry on top of the win with a grand slam to straightaway center before an out had been recorded in the seventh.Drew Gilbert even got redemption for the catch he missed at the wall earlier in the series, leaping for a spectacular home run robbery of Andrew Vaughn for the final out of the eighth.Perhaps the only knocks were a throw in the dirt from Willy Adames that Rafael Devers wasn’t able to scoop and the pitching staff’s ongoing affinity for issuing bases on balls — three in 4 ⅓ innings from Houser, whose day was over after serving up a two-run shot to Jackson Chourio, plus five more from the bullpen for 28 total over the course of the series.That forced manager Tony Vitello to turn to his closer, despite leading by five runs, after Wilkin Ramos failed to record an out and walked home a run in the ninth.Representing the tying run, David Hamilton sent a fastball from Caleb Killian to the warning track in center field but it just stayed in the park for a far more stressful final out than there should have been.San Francisco led 3-0 after bringing nine men to the plate in the top of the first and added on with back-to-back doubles fro...