The Giants added rookie Wade Meckler to the equation, but the solution remained the same: their engineless offense didn’t have enough gas to reach its intended destination.
Thairo Estrada drove in both of the Giants’ two runs and posted their only extra base hit as Tampa Bay out-hit San Francisco 18 to six.
Five Giants pitchers gave up a season-high 18 hits, clouding the Giants’ typically effective bullpenning strategy. Yet the primary issue remains: how are the Giants going to score more runs?
After Monday’s 10-2 loss, the Giants (63-56) have scored three or fewer runs in each of their last five games. They’ve lost seven of nine and don’t have any immediate fixes for lineup that has been broken since July. They’ve shuffled up the batting order, they’ve tried burning sage in the batting cage, and they’ve revolved the rookie door. Nothing has worked.
“That was a really good hitting team that swung the bat really well,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said of the Rays postgame. “The Rangers were a really good hitting team that swung the bat really well. Doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have days where we get those guys out…but up and down their lineup, they have guys who really bang.”
The Giants offense has been scarce for weeks. Since their 10-game winning streak expired on June 22, they rank last in runs scored and second to last in team wRC+. They’ve averaged 3.3 runs per game since July 1 and are now 1-24 overall in games in which they allow seven or more runs.
The series opener against Tampa Bay wasn’t going to be any easier. Twenty minutes before first pitch, San Francisco scratched Wilmer Flores — the club’s only consistently productive hitter over the past six weeks — from the lineup due to an ear infection.
And although the Rays have cooled off considerably since their barnstorming start, Tyler Glasnow — Tampa’s starter on Monday — has as dynamic a pitch arsenal as anyone in MLB.
The Giants were so desperate for hitting, they called up Meckler after just 10 Triple-A games. The former eighth round pick made his debut after getting drafted a year ago. The Giants also inserted journeyman utility player Johan Camargo into the lineup, searching for any spark.
Meckler worked a walk and displayed a keen eye, but went 0-for-3 with a strikeout to strand the bases jammed in the seventh. The Giants elected not to pinch hit outfielder Heliot Ramos for him to get a platoon advantage.
The decision was probably marginal in that situation, as Flores (illness) was unavailable. Meckler has also had success in the minors against southpaws, hitting .365 against lefties — but he’d never seen a big league lefty before.
“I think Meckler has a chance to be a good hitter against lefties,” Kapler said. “You go back and look at his track record at the minor league level, he can draw a walk in any of those situations, he can slash a ball to the opposite field. He’s shown really good bat control. And I think in our organization, we want to develop some hitters that can face lefties and righties.”
Camargo (1-for-4) tallied his first hit as a Giant, but also struck out on three pitches with the bases loaded in the fifth. When the Giants first took the field, he jogged out to his station at third base, scooped up some dirt and clutched it against his chest. If his time with the Giants is brief, at least he got a memento.
Against Glasnow, the only run the Giants produced came on two walks and two singles in the fifth inning. Before that mini rally, Tampa Bay had registered nine of the top 10 hardest-hit balls of the game. And before that inning, Glasnow had faced the minimum 12 batters in four scoreless frames.
Relying on his high-90s fastball and dueling offspeed offerings, Glasnow generated 12 whiffs in five innings.
Entering Monday, Glasnow had posted four consecutive quality starts. Over his previous 43.1 innings, he posted an elite 2.08 ERA.
That kind of dominance was far too much for the struggling Giants to match up with. Tampa Bay didn’t need to push Glasnow, ending his start after six strong innings and 87 pitches.
Only Michael Conforto, Joc Pederson and Thairo Estrada — each of whom singled — connected for base hits against Glasnow. The starter fanned seven in six one-hit innings.
SF rallied for a run in the eighth but by then, the Rays had already opened up an advantage that should’ve been even bigger than it was. And by then, much of the Giants’ announced crowd of 25,748 had fled .
Harold Ramirez’s ninth-inning RBI triple was Tampa Bay’s 18th hit, making it a season-high for the Giants pitching staff. The Rays finished with eight of the 11 batted balls hit with an exit velocity of at least 100 mph.
One team hit the ball hard, the other didn’t.