For once, the Giants were rooting for more rain.
The tarp draped over Target Field after the seventh inning, when the Giants clung to a one-run lead. San Francisco had scored one run on one hit. The game was official, so if the storm persisted through the Minneapolis night, the Giants would have earned a win in an abbreviated game.
Instead, play resumed after about a 51-minute rain delay. Closer Camilo Doval had the chance to earn a four-out save, but surrendered two runs in the ninth to send the game into extra innings.
Doval hadn’t allowed an earned run in his previous 10.1 innings. The new sinker he added had made him virtually unhittable. A lack of command surfaced against the Twins, though, and they took advantage.
Then after the Giants failed to score the automatic runner in the 10th, Dominic Leone walked in the winning run on four pitches.
It took four hours and 50 minutes for the Giants to lose to the Twins, 3-2 in extra innings. San Francisco (61-64) has dropped five of seven on its current road trip.
When play resumed after the weather delay, the Giants led 1-0 on the back of a Tommy La Stella sacrifice fly in the fifth. Before Joey Bart’s double that set up that run, the Giants had gotten no-hit by Sonny Gray through four innings.
But La Stella’s RBI gave the Giants a lead because stellar pitching and defense was blanking Minnesota. Alex Cobb pitched five scoreless innings with seven strikeouts. Diving plays from LaMonte Wade Jr. and Wilmer Flores, a barehanded snap by Cobb and solid range in left field from Luis González kept Minnesota off the board.
Before rain dumped on Target Field, Zack Littell and Alex Young pitched nearly spotless innings to preserve SF’s lead.
But just as Young walked off the field after retiring Luis Arraez to end the seventh inning, the Twins’ groundskeepers brought the tarp onto the field.
The delay lasted about an hour, and when play resumed it was no longer televised on FOX. Programming eventually fixed itself, but not before the Giants added a run to their lead with an Austin Slater sacrifice fly.
Then Doval inherited runners on the corners from John Brebbia. Ten days ago, the Giants faced a similar leverage situation with Dominic Leone against the Diamondbacks, but manager Gabe Kapler elected then to ride with Leone instead of going to his closer. It backfired, and the Giants blew a lead in a loss.
“We need to have confidence in everybody in our bullpen,” Kapler said after that loss. “Camilo Doval cannot handle the load for the entire bullpen all the time.”
This time, Kapler went with Doval. The 25-year-old got the out to end the eighth inning, but then struggled in the ninth. The new sinker that’s made him dominant faded off the plate. Two walks and two singles erased SF’s 2-0 lead.
In the top of the 10th, González unsuccessfully tried to advance from second to third on a grounder to short. That miscue ruined San Francisco’s chances at scoring the ghost runner.
To end it, the Twins manufactured a run with a sacrifice bunt, walk, intentional walk and bases-loaded free pass on Leone.
A rain delay, uncharacteristic Doval appearance and extra-innings mental mistakes: the Giants found yet another new way to lose a game.