Giants don’t lose on Ray Day
It was a Frangelico kind of evening. As fun as the 2025 season has been so far, fans of the San Francisco Giants haven’t had many of these, games of leisure, I mean, one in which you can enjoy stretched-out on the couch rather than stressed-out on the edge of your seat, constantly getting up to go to the bathroom between innings, or anxiously rearranging throw pillows after every pitch.
I poured myself a glass of that hazelnut liqueur in the 5th inning, right after Robbie Ray closed out the frame with another ridiculously high fastball to the ridiculously tall catcher, Jacob Stallings. A bold move, I know, pouring myself what was in essence a celebratory drink. A debutante gesture of nonchalance that had the power to rent the fabric of the sports universe. A real jinx-y move, in other words. Especially so, given the late-lead lost to a very beatable Colorado yesterday.
Earlier in the day one of my students asked me how a team like the Giants could lose to a team like the Rockies. It was the middle of history class, we were reading about the Missouri Compromise — but these organic moments of real learning are rare, so I took the opportunity to digress, to explain that this was the beauty of baseball, that even the most terrible teams will win a third of their games, and the best teams will lose a third, and what happened to the Giants on Thursday evening was one of the wonderful characteristics of the long season. One achingly frustrating loss doesn’t define a year; what defines a year is how a team responds in the next game. At this point, that all-too-familiar glaze had settled over the student’s eyes. He was looking in my general direction, not at me though, but at a fly crawling along the wall over my left shoulder. The other kids were dutifully waiting me out as well by scribbling dark graphite lines onto their notebook paper, poking their pencil eraser up their nose, scratching at their fingernail polish… You win some and lose some — the school year is a long season as well.
My point being is the Giants responded. They have all year, be it after a loss or down early in a game. Potential collapse is always a possibility, but that possibility, that uh-oh feeling tingling in your gut, can disappear fast considering a game’s rhythm and tone. Early on Friday, that tone was apparent: the Giants were not going to drop this one — especially with Robbie Ray on the mound.
By the 5th, when I decided to treat myself to a digestivo, things were more than comfortable. A 4 -run lead felt like 10. Their 3-run second fueled by a Wilmer Flores lead-off double and a LaMonte Wade Jr. RBI double gave Ray something to lean on. Matt Chapman’s 6th homer (and first extra base hit and RBI since April 24th) supplied a significant added cushion.
And it’s a thing now: the Giants don’t lose when Ray pitches.
Colorado had just two base runners in their first four innings: one in the 1st promptly erased attempting a delayed steal and one in the 4th on a two-out infield single. Ray had his 7th K by the end of the 5th. He strolled through the Rockies batting order, serving up a no-nonsense diet of four-seam fastballs and hard sliders.
This is the Ray Way — but unlike the typical Ray outing, he wasn’t reliant on whiffs, on chase, on challenge fastballs to bail himself out of unfriendly counts. After coaxing 23 swings-and-misses from hitters in his last start, he managed just 9 on Friday. No matter: he dotted offerings around the zone for 14 called strikes. Colorado hacks nicked off 20 fouls, but few at-bats wore on. Though the lefty generally abhors contact, he stayed efficient with either quick K’s or dictating contact. Two-thirds of the balls in play were on the ground, most of them rolled over on friendly hops to San Francisco’s left-side.
A toast felt appropriate after Ray ended his eveing with a 1-2-3 frame. After going years without pitching through the 7th inning, he’s pulled it off in consecutive starts, carving away chunks of his ERA while doing it (down from 4.07 to 3.05). Eight strikeouts (tying a season high) helped spread thin the Rockies four baserunners against him, managing just one at-bat with a runner in scoring position in the 6th.
Hayden Birdsong faced the minimum over the 8th and 9th, securing San Francisco’s first shutout of the year. After an annoying loss, the Giants responded. Now let’s hope they keep it rolling for the rest of the weekend.