More blunders and missed opportunities for the Giants in Chicago!
You won’t believe this, but despite the offense’s dense aura of despair and recent memory bias, the San Francisco Giants have been really good with the bases loaded. In 71 PA so far going into Sunday’s game, the team is slashing .333/ .394/ .667. Their 176 wRC+ is third highest in the league, behind…Arizona and Colorado. A trio of store-brand NL West teams you wouldn’t expect at the top of that split leaderboard — maybe it’s not wise to hit well with the bases loaded?
Wait, no…that can’t be right, because based on what went down in Sunday’s 5-2 loss to the White Sox, it’s the team with the clutch splash that clears the ducks off the pond that typically wins the game, not the team that falls on their face and sucks mud.
To be clear: The Giants were the ones who sucked mud.
In a 1-1 tie with one out in the 5th, Rafael Devers and Wilmer Flores worked walks against reliever Jordan Leasure before Mike Yastrzemski singled a line drive off the second baseman’s Lenyn Sosa’s glove to load the bases. Willy Adames, known to be a bit trigger happy in these positions, bit his lip and closed his eyes to keep from swinging, taking four straight pitches to work the RBI walk.
Gifted the lead, in the midst of a rally funded on Chicago’s dime, the Giants had the opportunity to really blow the lid off Rate Field. They could’ve gotten greedy, demanded more. The Sox were caught with their stirrups down. Even with the current scoring drought, ways of pushing across another run or two far outweigh the scoreless alternatives in that moment. With Jung Hoo Lee in the box, one felt confident at least that he’d put together a good at-bat, not chase, put the ball in play…
I think we’re all Hoo Lee Gans at heart. Most of us aren’t blessed to be numbered among the official 51 in the stands, but when I’m sitting at home on the couch and Lee steps into the box, I don my anime flame wig, shouting Jung. Hoo. Lee. loud and proud. Things haven’t been so loud at the plate for Lee. He’s clearly the spirit and soul of this club, his individual troubles at the plate line up directly with the team’s as a whole. His struggle is our struggle is the team’s struggle…so when he takes a well-elevated first pitch fastball from Leasure only to have it called a strike, it hurts. It hurts bad.
An injustice was what it was. Kicking a man when he’s down. How could someone who had walked three hitters in the inning, who hadn’t thrown a first-pitch strike to four consecutive hitters get that kind of leeway at the top of the zone? Austin Slater stole a double from Lee yesterday, and today, he was framed by the catcher and pushed in a hole by the umpire.
Count leverage isn’t an absolute determinant of result. It’s entirely possible that Lee would’ve grounded into an inning-ending 4-6-3 double play (he did it earlier) in a 1-0 advantage, but the count is still meaningful, especially if you’re a hitter in Lee’s shoes, desperate to reclaim his mojo with any competitive edge. How can you not feel like the world is against you after a pitch like that is called a strike? He was pushed out of his own at-bat. Frazzled by a tough call, already frazzled by a hitless series and by a 12-for-80 June, Lee chased a slider, another pitch well out of the zone, and popped it lifelessly up to short.
Much like Wisely being picked off at third, the inning wasn’t over, the third out not yet recorded, but the rally died there, strangled of its will. Leasure regained the momentum and rode it, got Koss to chase another first pitch slider below the zone before he lined out to the shortstop.
Still, the Giants did score a run. They had the lead, and for a brief series of frames, it looked as if it might be enough to eke out Justin Verlander’s first win in a Giants uniform. The wait has been long. The winless streak sustained through a fair amount of decent starts, a stint on the IL and the birth of his second child. Alas…no ‘W’ in this one either. Though he gave up just one run on a sacrifice fly in the 1st and pitched through 6 innings, Verlander will have to wait a little bit longer thanks to the certain members of the San Francisco bullpen.
Reliever Erik Miller recorded two outs in the 7th but allowed the tying run to reach scoring position with two singles. With right-hander Miguel Vargas coming up, Bob Melvin opted for righty Ryan Walker.
Walker had last pitched on Friday when he stranded an inherited runner in 6th to maintain San Francisco’s 3-1 lead. He pitched a clean 9th before that, albeit in the 12-5 Miami blowout. With a lefty Kyle Teel on-deck and considering Miller had only thrown 9 pitches (7 strikes), it was an aggressive, get the out now mentality. Maybe it would’ve been best for Miller to pitch around Vargas and see if he chased anything, but then you risk forcing Miller and his 16% BB-rate to work with the bases loaded…
If that’s what Melvin wanted to avoid, Walker ended up being the wrong man for the job. He walked Vargas to load the bases to set-up a mis-matched split. Walker threw one pitch in the zone, a sinker Vargas fouled off, before Patrick Bailey stole a low slider for strike-two. The frame job may have fooled the home plate umpire, but it didn’t fool Vargas nor Walker.
Flighty command has been an issue all year for the righty, and when one pitch of his isn’t working, he becomes one-dimensional. A one-pitch Johnny (Cool term, Steven!). When he’s up against it, trying to do too much with limited resources, Walker tends to overthrow. He overthrew two sinkers that missed well-off the outside to walk Vargas and load the bases, and in a 1-0 count, catcher Kyle Teel hooked a slider into right for a 2-out, 2-RBI double.
The lead gone, and the outing just got worse. In an 0-2 count, a pitch away from keeping Chicago’s advantage to one run, Balker, I mean Walker, went into his motion and…forgot to let go of the ball.
I’m being snarky. Walker knows to be a pitcher he must pitch the ball (pitching is about letting go, Ryan) — just balks in consecutive outings will make you wonder. FP Santangelo from the radio booth quickly diagnosed him with the yips. Could be, or there’s something about the Chicago mound that’s messing with him. Perhaps, weak ankles? His back foot lost its footing and went wonky on Friday, leading him to stumble forward.
Sunday afternoon, his ankle flexed towards the ground, uprooting his cleat again and undermining his stride.
Who knows why, and why now, thats happening. The physical issues probably stem from the mental. I’m sure there’s a lot of things bouncing around Walker’s head right now when he takes the mound. A lot of demons of doubt, a lot of voices echoing in his ear, telling him how to attack a hitter, how to tweak his wind-up, telling him not to screw up future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander’s first win again.
You gotta feel for the headspaces of these players. Even the most seasoned players can get trapped up there, locked away in those empty and airless attics of regret and anxiety. It makes sense that these mistakes are compounding. The team is spiraling — but man, the only way thats going to stop is if someone, like…stops it. Someone has got to buckle down and perform in the types of scenarios that cropped up Sunday afternoon. They can’t have their bullpen blow leads, no matter how small, against one of the worst offenses in baseball. They can’t be picked off at third, they can’t let multiple bases-loaded scenarios go to waste, they can’t balk in a run…
Overall, San Francisco recorded 6 hits and worked 8 walks including a HBP. They went 2-for-11 with RISP and left 11 runners on base. Chicago went 2-for-12 with RISP and left 10 on base. The difference? That elusive game-changing knock. Giants fans and players alike watched, green with envy, as the baseball off Teel’s bat found outfield grass. A cannonball into glassy waters. They couldn’t do it in the 5th, and they couldn’t get it done again in the 8th, loading the bases with one out before Heliot Ramos grounded into an inning-ending double play.
A sweep against Miami followed up by a series lost against Chicago. Jeeze, I hope these games don’t come back to bite us in September.