Another dominant start by Robbie Ray helped secure the series win over the Cubs
Based on how the San Francisco Giants played on Monday, I figured this series in Chicago was going to be a humbling couple of games, a smack down against one of the most potent offenses in baseball.
But after redeeming themselves with a historic extra-inning showing on Tuesday, the Giants kept it rolling — albeit in a somewhat subdued manner. Not quite 9 runs in a frame, but three early runs stuck to claim their 8th series win of 2025 while improving to 14-8 against opponents with a .500-or-better winning percentage.
Robbie Ray — who else? — authored his third consecutive quality start, throwing 6 solid innings while allowing 1 run on 2 walks and 3 hits while striking out 5.
After the 3-1 win, the Giants are now 8-0 in games Ray starts.
The lefty noted in his postgame interview that the game plan facing a team like the Cubs was to “mix everything up”. The goal: Keep them off balance. Far from a revolutionary concept, and yet, still an effective one. The fastball-leaning veteran leaned heavily on his secondary pitches. His 42% four-seam usage was his lowest in-game percentage since facing the Yankees, and he bridged the gap with upping the presence of his knuckle-curve, especially early in counts. Only four of the 23 batters Ray faced saw a first-pitch fastball. Starting soft and pitching “backwards” helped the four-seam jump on hitters in later counts, which helped induce less-than-desirable contact. 8 of the 11 balls put in play off Ray were topped into the ground.
Perhaps this “surrender to contact” has been the secret to Ray’s 2025 success so far. Don’t get me wrong, he is still a three-outcomes pitcher. He wants the ball to miss the bat, he’d give out a walk rather than a hit, but maybe in his old age, or just sharing a clubhouse with Logan Webb, there’s been a realization that he can remain effective deeper in games if he is less concerned with blowing batters away. He still has a high K-rate, but his 9.6 K/9 going into Wednesday’s game was nearly a strikeout and a half lower than his career rate. His hard-hit rate is still very high — but so is the ground-ball rate, which means a lot of well-struck balls are potentially a lot less damaging.
Case in point. Good things happen when the ball is on the ground.
If the season ended this evening, Ray’s 43.8% GB% would be his highest since 2016. Not Webb level by any means, but an encouraging development that we saw pay dividends today.
After an extra-innings bullpen drain yesterday, the Giants needed Ray to go deep in the game. A 33-pitch 3rd put that possibility in serious jeopardy, but he was able to extend his outing by needing just 19 pitches to navigate the 5th and 6th. Two clean frames with three ground outs and a single strikeout. The most pitches thrown in an at-bat was four.
Though Ray may be more open to the dictate contact don’t just avoid it style, I can’t imagine he’ll ever be a full convert. Old dog’s don’t really learn new tricks — and even though he’s lowered his ERA to 2.84, he’s probably still ticked about happened to him with two outs in the 4th. The one run blemish to his pitching line came on what should’ve been a routine flyout if not for the whipping winds of Wrigley.
Those damn balls-in-play…
A bogus run-scoring hit that took a decent chunk out of the Giants’ 3-0 lead floated by RBI knocks from LaMonte Wade Jr. and Christian Koss. Props to Ray who didn’t let the tough break get to him. Ya can’t control the weather. What ya can control is your pitch selection. A first offering curve to Dansby Swanson secured an inning-ending ground-out ,which standed Pete Crow-Armstrong at second, and proved to be the Cubs last at-bat with a runner in scoring position of the afternoon.
Camilo Doval took over the mound in the 7th and struck out 2 while working around a 2-out walk for his 13th consecutive scoreless outing. The volatile righty has been anything but since his problematic performance on April 7th against the Reds. Opponents have managed just one hit against Doval during this stretch of dominance and he’s lowered his ERA from 5.06 to 1.53.
Tyler Rogers rolled through the 8th, setting up an opportunity for Ryan Walker to reclaim the 9th after blowing a 2-run lead and getting an early boot the night before.
Command had been the source of his previous troubles, and luckily command of his sinker was evident from the start. Spotty control of the slider however forced him to push a full-count fastball over the plate to stand-out Carson Kelly.
A lead-off single to someone in as sensitive a place as Walker is right now could certainly snowball into disaster. But while the result wasn’t ideal, the quality of that knock sang a different tune. A note that was certainly not lost on Walker. Even through my built-in TV speakers, you could hear how poor the quality of contact was. On a middle-middle fastball — a pitch Kelly knew was coming — the Cubs catcher could only manage only to drill it into the ground. That’s how good Walker’s sinker can be.
Four pitches later, it happened again: A middle-middle fastball that Justin Turner rolled to short for a tailor-made double play.
Four pitches later, another ground-out, this time on a wide slider that Matt Chapman charged, scooped and buried in LaMonte Wade Jr’s mitt for the final out.
Off day tomorrow. Minnesota on Friday.