Twice Alex Wood hit batters in an 0-2 count. Twice he allowed two-run home runs. A bases-clearing double high off the center field wall extended a nightmare inning.
Twins hitters drilled Wood pitches at exit velocities of 106.9, 104.8, 104.3, 103.6 and 100.1 mph.
One start after his season-worst 4.2-inning, seven run outing in Coors Field, Wood put up one of the worst starts of his career. He allowed eight runs in three frames, setting the Giants (61-63) back in Target Field.
The eight earned runs Wood surrendered matched his career-high in the Giants’ 9-0 loss. Minnesota entered on a six-game losing streak and without their best player, Byron Buxton, but handled the Giants nonetheless.
Wood clearly didn’t have his best stuff from the beginning. He hit leadoff man Kyle Garlick with an 0-2 slider. Two pitches later, Carlos Correa socked another slider for a two-run shot.
Wood worked a seven-pitch 1-2-3 second inning, but then imploded in the third.
Nine-hitter Sandy Leon opened the frame with a single that Joc Pederson couldn’t corral with a dive. Two more singles loaded the bases with no outs. After a sacrifice fly, another 0-2 hit by pitch re-jammed the bases.
Then with two outs, Gilberto Celestino unloaded on a sinker over the plate, sending it high off the center field wall and clearing the bases. His double gave Minnesota a 6-0 edge. Then Gary Sanchez made it 8-0 by scoring Celestino with an opposite-field bomb.
Wood had allowed eight runs in a game just once in his career — a 5.1-inning start in hitter-friendly Coors Field in 2015. In a 2013 start, he lasted just 2.1 innings while allowing seven runs. Just last week, he allowed seven on three home runs, again in Denver.
This one against the Twins had a special kind of ugly. Loud contact, missing wildly in 0-2 counts, leaving pitches over the middle, allowing the weakest opposing hitters to get on.
Typically, the damage against Wood comes when he faces hitters for a third time. Opponents in such situations have posted a .945 OPS against the 10-year veteran. But against the Twins, Wood couldn’t even get deep enough into the game to test his danger zone.
Meanwhile, San Francisco native — and former Giants draftee — Joe Ryan shut out the Giants for six innings.
By the late innings, Giants broadcasters Dave Flemming and Javier Lopez were left with nothing better to talk about than the pickle pizza and other exotic attractions at the Minnesota State Fair. The paused briefly to discuss the homer moonlighting pitcher Austin Wynns allowed.
Wood has been a valuable starter for the Giants this year, a dependable cog in a rotation that’s held up the rest of the club for much of the season. But on Friday night, he didn’t give the Giants a chance.