A microcosm of the bad parts of the season.
Sometimes I need to remind myself that the San Francisco Giants are a good baseball team; a decent enough baseball team, at the very least. Even after Friday’s 4-0 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in their return to action, the Giants remain six games above .500, with a comfortably positive run differential, and a spot in the postseason standing just a few paces in front of them.
And yet, I need the reminder. I need the reminder because, despite occupying territory reserved for good teams, the Giants losses always feel so typical. The struggles, the failures, and the negative scores after nine innings always leave us rushing to the cabinet to pull out the platitudes that have been flipped against the team: We’re so back, and Nothing like it and It doesn’t get more Giant.
That was the case during Friday’s loss.
The Giants filled up the bases but hit 0-9 with runners in scoring position, failing time and time again to capitalize on a good opportunity. We’re so back.
Justin Verlander began the day with optimism and ended it shaking his head after getting pulled early in the middle of a disaster. Nothing like it.
There were feel-good stories and strong performances to fill you with optimism, but you hardly noticed because it never felt like the Giants had a legitimate chance to win. It doesn’t get more Giant.
So just remember: the Giants are a good team. Or a decent team, at least. A respectable team, to be sure. The losses may feel clichéd and formulaic, but they still exist with lesser abundance than the wins. A loss that fits the script is like a made Steph Curry three: it feels inevitable and constant, even though it happens less than half the time.
To be clear, Friday’s loss didn’t fit the script so much as it made a mockery of it. It was a Saturday Night Live sketch about Giants losses, taken to just far enough of an extreme so as to be funny, but not so far that it lost communication with reality.
The Giants opened the game in inspired fashion, with Mike Yastrzemski and Heliot Ramos stringing together back-to-back singles, putting instant pressure on Chris Bassitt. But Rafael Devers would hit into a double play, and Matt Chapman was retired, and oh baby, we’re only just getting started.
The second inning offered instant replay, in case you missed the first inning. After Willy Adames struck out looking at a 3-2 pitch two inches off the plate, Jung Hoo Lee and Casey Schmitt singled in succession. And then Dominic Smith hit into a double play two pitches later.
The third inning was acceptable in a vacuum. The Giants waited until they already had two outs to mount their rally, with Ramos and Devers whomping singles one after the other before Chapman lined out. Acceptable in a vacuum; bad for your hair given what transpired earlier.
After a hit pause to collect their breath in the fourth inning, the Giants got a runner on in the fifth, when Patrick Bailey doinked a swinging bunt of a single with one out.
In the sixth, Devers led off in fashion, roping a sinker 104.6 mph high off the wall, a home run in 11 ball parks but just a double in Canada. A double that, despite beginning the inning, would go nowhere.
They returned to their earlier ways in the seventh inning, with Smith and Bailey offering up back-to-back one-out singles.
In the eighth, it was a mild two-out knock by Willy Adames.
And in the ninth they finally gave in, accepting their fate as all three batters who came to the plate struck out.
The final tally: 11 hits and 0 runs. It was only the seventh time in franchise history they’d accomplished such a feat. It was only the second time since moving to San Francisco. It was only the first time since 1959.
San Francisco’s inability to turn rallies into runs was turned into a mockery. Their 0-for-X with RISP was rubbed in their face. It was satire. Pure satire.
And so too, was it satire for poor Verlander. The same Verlander who, despite representing the last hope of a Major Leaguer reaching 300 wins, entered the All-Star break winless. The same Verlander who made a mechanical tweak before his final start of the half, and reaped the rewards. The same Verlander who has been bad, but somehow his poor luck has outpaced and lapped his poor play.
After escaping trouble in the first inning, Verlander found inescapable trouble in the second. Despite showcasing visibly different mechanics than earlier in the season, and sitting at an encouraging 95-96, the Hall of Fame-bound hurler helplessly watched as Addison Barger legged out an infield single, and Alejandro Kirk hit a more conventional one, and Joey Loperfido ripped an RBI double.
Verlander secured an unproductive out, but it was immediately followed by a double from Will Wagner and a single courtesy of Nathan Lukes. Just like that, the Blue Jays had scored all four runs that the game would see.
That was all the damage for Verlander, but only barely. He escaped the rest of the inning unscathed, but did allow a single and a hit batter. After the baseball deities taunted him in the third when Kirk, a built-like-Bartolo catcher, reached safely on a swinging bunt in an 0-2 count, Verlander ceded another single. He briefly appeared to pull it together when he worked a double play, but a two-out walk to Wagner was all that Bob Melvin could muster. Out came the skipper and in came the thrower, having ceded 12 baserunners while recording just eight outs, having induced only five swings-and-misses on 66 pitches, having struck out no batters for just the sixth time in his illustrious career.
It felt like just another one of his shellackings, yet it was the second-shortest start he’s had in 16 outings this year. It was tied for the most hits he’s allowed. It was the most baserunners he’s granted. His struggles were turned into a joke that everyone was in on. Everyone except him, his teammates, and you.
And because of it, we weren’t granted the enjoyment of the actual enjoyable parts of the game. If we had been, we would have been gleeful at the innings that Tristan Beck ate while Verlander paced the dugout wondering what happened. Beck inherited a two-on, two-out situation, and needed just two pitches to get Lukes to pop out. It was the first of 10 consecutive batters that Beck would retire, and when he finally gave in and gave one up — a leadoff single to George Springer in the seventh — it was erased two pitches later when Beck forced a double play out of Toronto’s 500 million dollar man. He faced 13 batters and recorded 13 outs, needing just 46 pitches to do so.
When Beck finally left the game as we flipped to the eighth, his replacement offered more happiness. It was the Giants debut for lefty Matt Gage, 11 years after the organization drafted him in the 10th round. Gage, who made his MLB debut three years ago with the Blue Jays team he was faced with, and returned to the team he drafted him a few weeks ago on a Minor League deal, and was called up Friday morning. He breezed through the eighth inning, walking a batter but forcing soft contact and needing just 12 pitches.
The offense also offered optimism that you were too busy shaking your head to see. Everyone in the lineup except Chapman had a hit. Ramos and Devers looked like their lovable slugger selves, and not the players who limped into the break. They had two-hit days, as did Bailey, who picked up where he left off in the first half, as he continues to turn his offensive season around.
But the good was masked by the bad, and even though the good masks the bad more than vice versa, the bad masking the good just always feels so … typical. Expected. Giants.
Nothing like it.