The Giants and Braves shared the same diamond, but the similarities just about ended there on a night in Truist Park.
The conflagrated Braves peppered the field with line drives. The freezer-burned Giants mustered three base runners. Spencer Strider, Atlanta’s starter, struck out 10 in seven dominant innings.
Last year’s rookie of the year, Michael Harris II, went 4-for-5 with a double and triple, personally out-hitting San Francisco. Atlanta registered 10 of the game’s 15 hardest hit balls.
To start a brutal stretch of tough competition, the Giants (64-58) got shut out, 4-0. Giants starter Alex Cobb gave them a chance, but given the current state of SF’s offense, the club needs much more than that.
In the opener of a three-game series, the best team in baseball looked like it, and the Giants’ alarming offensive woes continued.
Harris isn’t even one of the most menacing batters in Atlanta’s order, which is the most dangerous in all of baseball. Ronald Acuña is the National League MVP frontrunner. Matt Olson leads the world in dingers. Austin Riley has a 1.070 OPS in the second half. Sean Murphy — who slid down to seventh on Friday — is the best hitting catcher in MLB.
Seven Braves would lead the Giants in homers this year. Their vaunted lineup was ready for Cobb.
In the first inning, Cobb gave up two runs on four singles and a hit-by-pitch. Even the outs were hit hard. Before Cobb eventually escaped, Atlanta tagged him for five balls hit over 100 mph, topping out with Acuña’s leadoff single at a scorching 113.5 mph.
Nobody hits the ball harder than the Braves. Acuña individually has more exit velocities tracked over 110 mph than the Giants do as a team.
The Giants nearly avoided falling behind in the first, but Brandon Crawford fumbled what likely would’ve been a double play ball. After that, Cobb gave up consecutive singles and hit a batter, requiring a mound visit.
Atlanta tacked on another run in the second with a triple and double with scorching exit velocity readings of 102.1 and 112.2 mph.
Cobb kept the Giants in it despite continuing loud contact. The All-Star entered Friday with a 5.63 ERA in six second-half starts. His start (5.2 IP, 8H, 4ER, 3K, 2BB) was his most effective since Aug. 1.
The Giants, predictably, looked lost compared to the team currently with the highest slugging percentage in the history of the sport. For the past eight weeks, SF has been MLB’s least productive offense.
By the time the Giants earned their first base runner, Atlanta had seven hits to their zero.
Strider struck out six of the first eight Giants he faced as part of three perfect innings.
Many Giants appeared to be looking for fastballs to swing at, but rarely could catch up. Crawford went down swinging at two heaters down the middle, but he was hardly the only one who was overmatched.
In the eighth inning, the Giants flashed some promise of breaking out when they put two runners on base with a hit-by-pitch and single. They didn’t drive in either despite two sharp line drives from Thairo Estrada and the pinch-hitting Austin Slater.
Even when the Giants make solid contact, they’re not getting rewarded.
Giants manager Gabe Kapler, suspended for the game for returning to the dugout after getting ejected Wednesday, couldn’t have had fun watching it all unfold.
Kapler shared on KNBR during the club’s off day that the Giants coaching staff had spent a good chunk of the team flight discussing potential solutions for their offensive doldrums. Conversations interrupted their poker game and kept flowing.
Perhaps against a pitcher with more average stuff than Strider, some changes might yield results. Strider, MLB’s current strikeout king, fanned 10 in seven marvelous innings. Just two Giants reached base facing the righty.
In a schedule chunk with five more games against the Braves and three in Philadelphia, the season could slip away. If nothing changes with the offense, all the frustration and angst swirling around the club will only keep brewing.