SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants avoided a sweep at the hands of the Cleveland Guardians on Thursday, thanks to a clutch hit from the man they’ve looked to in crucial situations all season long.

Trailing by a run after a stellar seven-inning start by Logan Webb, Wilmer Flores put the Giants ahead in the bottom of the seventh, driving in both Casey Schmitt and Jung Hoo Lee on a pinch-hit double down the left-field line. That margin held, thanks to scoreless relief innings by Randy Rodriguez and Camilo Doval, and the Giants won 2-1 in front of a sellout crowd of 40,093 fans at Oracle Park.

Flores’ big hit had been a long time coming for the Giants. San Francisco (42-33) was riding an 0-for-22 streak with runners in scoring position, one that had squandered promising rallies in the first two games of the series.

It looked like the Giants might do it again. But Flores put an end to all of it — a potential sweep, a shutout, a five-game losing streak, and another in a growing line of missed opportunities.

“It’s always a good feeling when you have those kinds of at-bats,” Flores said. “It fires you up. We’ve been getting on base a lot, which is good. But we just have to keep grinding and try to have a good result.”

Largely on the back of a seven-game winning streak from June 4-11, San Francisco tied the Dodgers atop the National League West last Friday. Since then, the Giants had lost four games in a row, while Los Angeles won five straight to open a 4 1/2 game gap in the NL West.

The Giants can’t get it all back at once, but Thursday’s win was a shot in the arm for a team desperately needing one. The wave of good vibes from Sunday’s blockbuster acquisition of Rafael Devers helped lift San Francisco’s spirits momentarily, but the Giants needed a genuine on-field victory to really restore some positive momentum in the clubhouse.

“We won seven in a row, and then all of a sudden we lost four in a row,” manager Bob Melvin said. “And on the other side of the games that we normally win, the one-run games, the close games, we lose four of them, which didn’t feel good. So it was huge that we got the win today. Not getting off to a great start offensively, but when Wilmer got the hit in the seventh, we felt like we were gonna win that game.”

Flores’ game-winner had the added benefit of giving Webb a well-deserved victory. Webb pitched through multiple jams to keep the Giants in the game, and until the seventh they had rewarded him by stranding five runners on base, including a two-on, none-out setup in the bottom of the fifth that bore no fruit.

“It’s not even being in line for a personal win,” Webb said. “It’s just that we take the lead right after having lost four straight. It’s been a tough stretch. We’re playing a really good team, one of the best pitching staffs in baseball, and they proved it this week. It was great to get those two runs on the board and get the lead, and then we handed off to our bullpen, which is the best in the league. So it’s fun for me to be in the dugout and enjoy that.”

Cleveland (37-36) took the initial lead in the third inning when Carlos Santana blooped a two-out single to left field, scoring Fremont native Steven Kwan, who had three hits while playing at home in the Bay Area.

On Family Day at Oracle Park, Giants players took the field after the game with their families and took photos together, including hopping into a Hogwarts Express-labeled choo-choo train that players rode around the warning track with their young children.

It likely would have been an upbeat occasion regardless of the game’s result. But after Flores came through, the Giants didn’t have to fake it for the benefit of their loved ones.

“It’s such a great feeling to have him up there,” Melvin said of Flores. “It’s so hard to do, and we expect so much of him. We expect him to come through every time in those situations, and he does almost every time. But it’s really, really difficult to do, coming from having to sit on bench the entire game to having the biggest at-bat of the game. He gets behind in the count, doesn’t try to do too much, puts it in play with the infield in. It’s just what he does.”

The pair of RBIs gave Flores 53 this season, tying him for sixth-best in the National League and 10th-best in the majors.