The San Francisco Giants’ offense came to life on Tuesday, and it is critical that you understand that “come to life” is a relative term. Life, in living and breathing human being terms, may be binary, but in baseball parlance it is not.
For the Giants, coming to life means they scored exactly five runs, which marked just the 11th time they’ve done that through 36 games this year. It might not be a sign of life for the eight MLB teams that are averaging at least five runs per game.
But the issue with an offense that comes to life is that you never know whether its relationship with the other half of the game will be symbiotic or parasitic. Can life on offense beget life on the mound? Or must life on offense funnel life from a pitcher in order to stay alive?
On Tuesday, it was emphatically the latter. San Francisco’s life in the batter’s box, relative as it may be, came at the direct expense of their life throwing pitches. And the result was a 10-5 loss at the hands of the San Diego Padres.
That’s disappointing enough as is, but disappointment gives way to concern when you get to the critical detail: Logan Webb was on the mound.
We keep waiting for Webb’s season to arrive, and it keeps putting us on hold, and making us listen to that annoying music while we wait. There are flashes though, and Webb treated us to a few right out of the gates. He opened the night by striking out Jackson Merrill, and immediately followed it by K’ing Manny Machado. He did allow a two-out triple to Miguel Andujar, but in vintage Webb fashion, looked utterly unbothered while quickly retiring the next batter.
And on the other end, the offense wasted no time upping its game, and trying to prove to Buster Posey and Tony Vitello that the roster buttons being pressed are not in vain, and that the roster messages being yelled are heard, chef. Jung Hoo Lee quickly started a rally with a leadoff single against old frenemy Walker Buehler, setting the first inning in motion.
That set the stage for seemingly the only player employed by the Giants who knows how to hit these days, but my goodness does he know how to hit. For the second day in a row, Casey Schmitt (playing second base this time) launched a majestic first-inning moonshot that tickled the fog and hugged the left field line.
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Just like that, the Giants had struck first with a pair of runs. With their offense looking lively and their ace on the mound, it didn’t even feel concerning when Xander Bogaerts bopped a solo shot in the second inning, cutting the lead in half.
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You had more confidence than a one-game winning streak should afford you, but you felt sure that the offense would get the run back and Webb would settle down.
Right on the former; wrong on the latter.
The offense got the run back and then some in the bottom half of the inning thanks to the final third of the lineup. The seventh, eighth, and ninth hitters — Willy Adames, Drew Gilbert, and Jesús Rodríguez, respectively — all singled with one out. It was the third and final knock in that hit parade that was special: Rodríguez, getting a second straight start behind the dish to begin his MLB campaign, slapped one to right field for his first career hit. Adames, meanwhile, with his head down in reckless hustle, never looked up to see Hector Borg’s stop sign, and ran right through it, challenging Fernando Tatis Jr.’s dynamic arm, and winning ever so slightly.
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Lee would follow that up with a fielder’s choice to score Gilbert, and the Giants led 4-1. Life was good, and it was even better when Webb would set down the side in order in the third, once again striking out Giants killers Merrill and Machado.
But soon it would not be very good at all. The fourth inning ended any and all hopes we garnered for an enjoyable baseball game. It started with a one-out, mild-mannered, seeing-eye single by Gavin Sheets. Such is the life of a sinkerballer.
It escalated a pitch later, when Tatis mashed a double to put runners at second and third with one out. Now the Padres were threatening to not just score a run, but get right back into the game.
They scored a run indeed, on a productive groundout by Bogaerts. It cut the score to 4-2, but it also gave Webb the second out of the inning, and escaping mostly intact was still in play. But Tatis would score when Nick Castellanos, who somehow still has a job, singled. And the danger only mounted further when Webb hit Luis Campusano with a pitch, putting the go-ahead run on the bases. And those runs would both score when Sung-Mun Song one-upped Rodríguez with his first career hit, which went for two bases and scored two runs. Take that, Jesús!
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Song, who had taken third on an error by Adames on the play, would score easily on a Merrill single, and just like that, the Padres had flipped the game on its head. The inning had started with what felt like a comfortable lead. It had ended with the worst inning Webb has had in ages, and a 6-4 deficit.
It would be the final inning for Webb, who finished with four frames thrown, seven hits allowed, six runs, and four strikeouts (but no walks!). He had only thrown 62 pitches, but Vitello announced after the game that Webb had some leg discomfort, and the training staff wanted to play in safe after a long inning.
Ever the gamer — and in this case, likely ever the truth-teller — Webb was adamant that any soreness he felt had no impact on the way he threw the ball. He just didn’t throw it well, and with that, his ERA ballooned to 5.06.
What came after wasn’t much prettier. JT Brubaker took over for the fifth, and managed to give up two hits and two walks in his only inning, though he somehow allowed just one run along the way. Despite the second and third batters in the sixth inning being right handed, Tony Vitello shockingly opted for Ryan Borucki in the frame, and it went about how you would expect: he didn’t even get through the opening lefty unscathed, as Merrill bopped a leadoff single. After stealing second, he scored on the most predictable of outcomes: Borucki allowing a hit to a righty.
Gregory Santos handled the seventh and eighth, and while his stuff was nasty — and 20 of his 28 pitches were strikes — his second frame featured a single by Song, a stolen base, an RBI double by Merrill, and, just because this is the kind of day the Giants were having, a balked-home run.
The lone clean outing belonged to Joel Peguero, who made his return from the Injured List and pitched a scoreless ninth inning in his season debut. Welcome back, Joel. And happy birthday!
As that chaos and disappointment unfolded on the mound, the Giants’ offense realized that resistance was futile, and tucked their hits into their back pocket for Wednesday’s game (or at least that’s what I’m telling myself). They went down in order in the third, fourth, fifth, eighth, and ninth innings. But while the showing was feeble during that time, it wasn’t devoid of highlights or feels, because in the seventh inning we were treated to one of the most special things in baseball: the first career home run.
No, it wasn’t off the bat of the highly-anticipated slugger Bryce Eldridge, though he did single for his first hit of the year. Instead, it was Rodríguez, who is getting the playing time preference over Patrick Bailey, it seems. With one out in the inning, Rodríguez got a slider from Jeremiah Estrada and, as he did earlier in the day with his single, inside-outed it to right field.
One day the rookie will learn about the disappointments that await hitters who hit fly balls to right field at Oracle Park, but that day will have to wait. Because in just his second career game, Rodríguez took on the arcade and emerged victorious, with his first slow jog around the bases.
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I’ll say this much about the Giants following Monday’s desperation promotions: they may still be awful, but they sure are a lot more interesting.
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