Anthony DeSclafani walked into Monday coming off an eight-inning shutout in Houston.
His pitches have moved like they did in 2021, and his 2.13 ERA reiterated as much. He ranked in the 98th percentile in walk rate, dominating matchups by getting ahead in counts and working the edges later.
DeSclafani hadn’t allowed more than four runs in any of his six starts entering the series opener with the Nationals. His season-high for hits allowed was seven.
In just the first inning, he tore past the former and matched the latter.
DeSclafani allowed five runs in the first inning, forcing the Giants (15-19) to work from behind all game. Even as DeSclafani settled in to keep Washington scoreless for the rest of his start, a lackluster offensive output wasn’t nearly enough for a comeback, as San Francisco faltered 5-1 to the Nationals.
“Obviously, we’d like to start the game over and do the first inning again, but other than that, I thought he pitched fine,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said postgame.
The Nationals did nearly all their damage — and all the necessary damage — in the first inning. They executed by attacking DeSclafani early in counts.
It doesn’t take a statistics PhD to know DeSclafani lives in the strike zone. He’d walked just three batters in 38 innings entering Monday. So the Nationals knew he was going to throw strikes.
Six singles and a double off DeSclafani put up five runs. It should have been more, but Keibert Ruiz ran into an out when he didn’t realize the Nationals were working station-to-station and second base was occupied by a teammate.
Five of those seven base hits came on either DeSclafani’s first or second pitch of the at-bat.
DeSclafani was delivering strikes as he normally does, they just happened to catch the middle of the plate.
“He was catching a little too much of the plate early in the game, and it’s a team across the way that’s pretty aggressive,” Kapler said. “And not just aggressive on fastballs, aggressive on all pitches. There are going to be times when he takes that same exact approach and those balls are going to be at people. They did a nice job, giving them credit, swinging the bats early on.”
The Giants found themselves behind 5-0 before they even picked up a bat. Once they did, nary a threat came.
San Francisco grounded into three double plays in the first four innings. Against rookie Jake Irvin, the Giants mustered four hits in 6.1 scoreless innings.
Through seven innings, the Giants owned only two of the 11 batted balls hit at least 100 mph.
That’s as DeSclafani made an impressive recovery from his uncharacteristic opening frame. After the first inning, the veteran allowed three hits and put up six zeroes. He retired the Nationals in order three times in a four-inning stretch. In the seventh, he jumped up and down as left fielder Mitch Haniger extended for a diving catch down the foul line that saved two runs.
DeSclafani had made an adjustment to his takeaway from his glove in the games leading up to Monday, he said, which helped with his pitch shapes. But that same mechanical tweak betrayed him in the first inning; he ditched it from the second inning on for six scoreless frames.
“Everything kind of fell back into line,” DeSclafani said. “Kind of frustrating that that happened and a five-spot went up. Put my team in a hole early.”
In that hole, the Giants offense remained in a rut. SF put a runner in scoring position with no outs in the eighth, but a fourth double play ended the inning without any damage.
For much of this year, strikeouts have been the main culprit when the Giants struggle. That wasn’t the case against the Nationals, though, as they only struck out six times. The issue, then, was a lack of timely hitting. SF went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position, and Joc Pederson’s ninth inning home run was one of only two extra base knocks for the Giants.
That’s not how to climb out of a five-run hole.