The Giants’ last hit of their 11-inning loss came in the fifth inning. Four of their last five batters of the night struck out. They went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position.
Ketel Marte’s 11th-inning ground rule double off Taylor Rogers put the Diamondbacks ahead, and the Giants’ anemic offense couldn’t summon a response.
Despite yet another Wilmer Flores home run, the Giants fell to division rival Arizona Diamondbacks in the series opener. The same issues persisted: as rallies went to die at the bottom of San Francisco’s order, the Giants (58-49) left eight on base in a 4-3 loss.
The lineup’s poor output wasted yet another strong pitching performance from an all-hands staff. Seven pitchers factored in for San Francisco, limiting Arizona to five hits in 11 innings. Alex Cobb was supposed to start, but came down with a stomach bug, forcing the Giants into their third straight game without a traditional starter.
“Hopefully he’s available to go for us tomorrow, we expect he will be,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said postgame. “But obviously, the real benefit was all our players were stepping up and ready to compete. All our bullpen arms stepped up and were ready to compete. I think that’s what good teams do, they come together and collectively pick up the slack when we have a guy go down.”
Before opener Jakob Junis’ first pitch, Arizona made a splash with its deadline acquisition of Mariners closer Paul Sewald. He didn’t pitch on Monday night, but will sure up the back-end of a Diamondbacks bullpen that ranks 23rd in ERA.
The Giants countered with a quieter move, buying struggling veteran AJ Pollock and utility man Mark Mathias for cash and a player to be named later.
It was certainly clear which team won the pregame sessions. But teams don’t win divisions, or earn wild card spots, with one trade.
The Giants were still in better position than the Diamondbacks even after the Sewald trade, with a two-game lead in the standings and much stronger run differential (San Francisco has outscored opponents by 24 runs; Arizona was -1).
The Diamondbacks had the kind of July the Giants refused to succumb to. Arizona went 7-16 in the month entering the last game. The Giants, despite scoring the fewest runs in baseball during that same stretch, have played .500 ball.
No one on the Giants, for more than a couple days or so, has stepped up behind Wilmer Flores. Against the Diamondbacks, the veteran smacked his sixth home run of July, keeping his OPS in the month above 1.100 and extending his reached-base streak to 14.
Flores’ homer — a 386-foot shot — came off right-handed starter Ryne Nelson in the third. In his first at-bat, Flores nearly cleared the center field fence, but Alek Thomas robbed him of a double.
SF scratched across another run the next inning when Brandon Crawford converted with a sacrifice fly. The Giants have struggled mightily with situational hitting in recent weeks, but putting Crawford’s veteran presence in the bottom third of the lineup should help.
The question remained: when will the Giants get Wilmer Flores some help?
As strong as the Giants’ run prevention unit was in July, they were going to need more than two runs against the frisky Diamondbacks. Junis provided three masterful innings to open, allowing just one hit. Alex Wood piggybacked after him and looked solid, until he walked a batter, threw a wild pitch and gave up an RBI single to Corbin Carroll.
That sequence, apparently, was enough for Kapler to yank Wood. He appeared to leave begrudgingly, avoiding any eye contact with his manager, after allowing three base runners in 2.2 innings. After the game, he said the game was the best he’s felt on the mound in a while.
Wood has been vocal about preferring to start games. A collective buy-in from the pitching staff, though, had helped the Giants go 14-4 in games without a traditional starter before Monday. The strategy allows the team to play matchups, keep opponents guessing and use their effective relief pitchers in leverage spots.
“I don’t think we view the opener as, like, some core philosophy that we’re trying to champion,” Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said pregame. “But we’ve had a lot of success in those games. A lot of that comes from the ability to feature our bullpen, which has been a strength of our team.”
Just as those games give the Giants’ coaching staff more windows to strategize, it creates openings for more variability. Replacing Wood with Luke Jackson didn’t work on Monday. There’s no way to know if Wood would’ve gotten out of his own jam, but Jackson immediately allowed a right-on-right, game-tying RBI double to Lourdes Gurriel Jr..
By using the strategy so frequently, the Giants also need to be conscientious to not tax their best relief pitchers too much. Monday was the third straight game Camilo Doval and Tyler Rogers appeared in, and it was Taylor Rogers’ third of four games.
The score remained gridlocked through regulation as the Giants went hitless in the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings. None of that drought stunned anyone who’s paid attention to the club this July.
“There’s ups and downs, and I think our whole team has been grinding offensively — besides Flo,” Joc Pederson said after his walk-off single Sunday.
After Emmanuel Rivera drove in the go-ahead run off Scott Alexander in the 10th, the Giants only needed to plate the automatic runner to extend the game. They did it without getting a hit.
Crawford, the placed runner, advanced to third on a groundout. Then he scored on a wild pitch that trickled away from catcher Carson Kelly. The Giants couldn’t add more as their hitless streak persisted, with Flores striking out to strand two. Flores can’t carry the Giants all the time.
With a key double play, Taylor Rogers limited Arizona to just one more run in the 11th, but Joc Pederson and Blake Sabol struck out and Patrick Bailey didn’t have a walk-off in him, either.
What could’ve been the Giants’ third straight walk-off win didn’t occur. Going hitless for six straight innings makes that tough.