SEATTLE — Bryce Eldridge hit a tiebreaking home run, Willy Adames added a grand slam, Landen Roupp tossed seven efficient innings, reliever Jason Foley made an emphatic return following nearly two years in rehab purgatory, and the San Francisco Giants were two outs away from celebrating one of their breezier victories Friday night in what’s been a foul-weather season.They had the game well in hand, but not exactly in the pocket.In the ninth inning, a fastball from right-hander Caleb Kilian sliced through the webbing of rookie catcher Drew Cavanaugh’s glove as easily as a high school football team storms through a paper banner. It was Cavanaugh’s second passed ball in 11 starts behind the plate. Both were the result of equipment malfunction. Three weeks earlier in a game at Arizona, right-hander Adrian Houser threw a pitch that blew out Cavanaugh’s laces and rolled to the backstop.“I’ll go through three a year,” said Cavanaugh, glancing at the mitt in his locker after the Giants’ 7-0 victory over the Seattle Mariners at T-Mobile Park. “I like when they have some touch to them. So I’ll run with one until it can’t go anymore. But … yeah, that’s probably the last you’ll see of that glove.”When a big leaguer breaks his bat while hitting a home run, he’ll often remark that it died a hero. What about catching a shutout as a last act before going to the great cow hide palace in the sky?“That’s true, it died a hero,” Cavanaugh said, smiling. “I like that.”If the Giants were hoping for a mental reset in their first game out of the All-Star break, they had no shortage of button pushers Friday night.Eldridge continued his encouraging rookie season when he interrupted a pitcher’s duel with a two-run home run in the fifth inning. Roupp took advantage of an 11-day layoff while holding the Mariners to two hits. Adames made a gleeful trot around the bases as he seeks to rescue what’s been a disappointing season.Adames’ slam in the seventh inning also provided Foley with a softer landing while the right-hander appeared in a major-league game for the first time since Sept. 27, 2024, when he was a member of the Detroit Tigers. Foley retired all three batters he faced in the eighth, touched 97.4 mph while winning a nine-pitch battle with Colt Emerson and pumped a fist as he walked off the mound.But the most encouraging part might have been what didn’t happen while the Giants won their third consecutive game to match their best winning streak of the season. Until the ninth, when Adames made a fielding error and Cavanaugh’s glove failed him, the Giants played a clean sheet. There weren’t any screwy outs made on the basepaths. No pitchers laboring through weedy, walk-filled innings.They played with the command, poise and smarts that were in such short supply while they stumbled to a 41-55 record heading into the All-Star break.Heliot Ramos' adjustments could lead to a big second halfEno Sarris and Derek VanRiperAnd their rookie catcher had a lot to do with that. Cavanaugh reached base in all four of his plate appearances from the No. 9 spot, drawing two walks and hitting two singles. He threw out Victor Robles attempting to steal second base in the fifth. He orchestrated the game plan and called pitches for Roupp with aplomb even though they were working together for just the second time in a major-league game.Cavanaugh even made a heady play on the basepaths, holding up on Luis Arraez’s ground ball to the right side in the sixth inning and screening Mariners second baseman Cole Young, who booted the ball for an error as a run scored.“I saw the ball and I knew even if he fielded it, I’d get to second base easily,” Cavanaugh said. “So why not try to disrupt him a little bit?”The Giants are too far behind in the standings to disrupt the National League playoff picture, but they have plenty to play for in the second half.Eldridge’s home run against tough right-hander Bryce Miller (the first Bryce-on-Bryce homer in major-league history, although Milwaukee’s Brice Turang took Atlanta’s Bryce Elder deep in 2003) offered yet another encouraging sign that he can be a lineup anchor for years to come. Eldridge became the first Giant since Jack Clark in 1977 to hit nine home runs in a season before his 22nd birthday. Clark hit 13 home runs as a rookie. There’s little doubt Eldridge will cruise past that mark.Roupp only struck out two, said he felt a little sluggish and might have felt thrown off his routine — his between-starts work included playing catch with Casey Schmitt in a parking lot in Santa Cruz over the All-Star break — but got off to a promising start in what will be an important final two months. He has thrown 104 innings; he should set a career high in his next start, and the Giants plan to keep giving him the baseball every fifth day as he makes a bid for incumbent status in next year’s rotation.And Foley, depending on your point of view, either thrust himself into trade conversations or gave the Giants reason to believe he can be an important part of what will need to be a reconstructed bullpen next season. The former Tigers closer endured a winding road while recovering from shoulder surgery in May of last year. After the Giants activated him, Foley received counsel from fellow reliever Sam Hentges, who also missed all of 2025 because of shoulder and knee surgeries.“He was like, ‘Dude, you’re going to be so nervous out there,'” Foley said. “But overall, I felt pretty good, felt relaxed and just really happy with the result that I didn’t walk that last guy and got him out. … I felt I needed a little more time and I’m ultimately happy I took it. Those guys in the training room did a great job with the rehab and stuff, and still are. It was a little tough to stay patient — you want to be back here — but ultimately it worked out the way it did.”In light of Friday’s pregame roster moves, however, you could argue Cavanaugh had the Giants’ most encouraging performance of the night. That’s because when the Giants activated catcher Daniel Susac from the IL, they designated veteran catcher Eric Haase for assignment.It wasn’t a huge shock Haase was taken off the roster; he was batting .162/.235/.365, he wasn’t particularly adept at containing opposing baserunners, he wasn’t an adept blocker and his catcher’s ERA of 5.84 was nothing to brag about. As a result, though, the Giants were left with three rookie catchers on the major-league roster.Cavanaugh had started 10 games. Jesús Rodríguez had started nine. Susac, before back issues sent him to the IL twice, had started 28 games behind the plate. They’d caught a total of 417 1/3 major-league innings between them entering Friday night.And remember, the Giants president of baseball operations also happens to be the most decorated catcher in franchise history. If Buster Posey’s honeymoon as a baseball architect is over, if he’s reached the stage after so many missteps at which he has to prove himself equal to the task, then nailing down the catching corps looms as one of the more pressing second-half tests he must pass.Even Posey, for all his brilliance as a player and luster as a young prospect, was only trusted to do so much at the outset of his career. He was mostly a bench player as a September callup in 2009. He was promoted for his bat and started at first base when he joined the team in May 2010. It wasn’t until then-GM Brian Sabean traded Bengie Molina to the Texas Rangers in June of that season that Posey became the primary catcher.Posey didn’t catch his first big-league shutout until his 15th start. Now Cavanaugh can boast of doing it twice in his first 11 games behind the plate.“Really?” Cavanaugh said. “I might have to mention that to him.”Cavanaugh had his first meaningful one-on-one conversation with Posey on the last homestand when they sat at the same lunchroom table in the clubhouse.“Oh, it was sweet,” said Cavanaugh, who held off mentioning that he was a Tigers fan growing up in Michigan in 2012, when Posey helped lead the Giants past Detroit in the World Series. “It was pretty much a conversation about trusting myself and not trying to do too much. That conversation stuck with me and I’ll keep riding with that.”Posey has had more frequent chats with Susac, a Rule 5 draftee who was supposed to be a backup to a two-time Gold Glove winner before the Giants traded Patrick Bailey to Cleveland in May.“Obviously, he’s still our boss, but I try to use him as a resource as much as I can,” said Susac, who is scheduled to start behind the plate and catch Logan Webb on Saturday. “It’s a unique situation where he’s one of the best catchers of all time. We’ve talked more from the mental side of things, how to run a pitching staff, how to be a leader back there, which is obviously one of his best traits.“He likes that we do a good job of complimenting pitchers, but he made the point that sometimes, if it’s going downhill, we need to get on them a little bit to stop it faster instead of waiting until it’s too late. That’s a piece of advice I liked the most, and obviously, it’s hard being young. You don’t want to push the wrong buttons, but it’s something I’m working on. Some of it, you just have to experience.”There are more than two months of baseball left for that. Cavanaugh will get started breaking in a new glove. By the end of the season, perhaps the Giants will break in more than that.