The one where the Giants get only two hits

The SF Giants wasted a solid outing from Justin Verlander in a 3-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The team scored one run, collected two hits, and Heliot Ramos outdid himself in blundering.

When you have a long-running TV sitcom, it becomes difficult to come out with fresh, frustrating situations for the main characters involved. How many times can Ross and Rachel break up, get back together, and break up again? Is there a new way that Steve Urkel can destroy the Winslow family’s home with his harebrained inventions and clumsiness? Would Jack Tripper really schedule dates with two different women at the same restaurant over and over without learning from his mistakes?

It’s starting to feel like that with the San Francisco Giants, who lost 3-1 to the Pittsburgh Pirates Tuesday night in a game that felt like a bunch of disastrous plots repeated from earlier in the season. This was “The One Where The Giants Get Only Two Hits,” a variation on “Luckless Starter Gets No Run Support” with a healthy dose of that old chestnut, “Why Do They Give Up So Many Infield Hits?”

Justin Verlander followed up his first win of the season with an effort that deserved a W. He only gave up three hits before giving up Liover Peguero’s first home run since 2023 with one out in the 5th inning.

Verlander finished with 5 IP, 6H, 1R, a walk and 7 K. He’s now given up only one run in his last 10 innings, which on a normal team might get you two wins.

But this is not a normal team, as evidenced by the first inning.

In Tuesday’s episode of, “What The Hell Is Heliot Ramos Doing?”, the Giants’ left fielder led off the game with a walk and stole second. After Willy Adames walked with one out, Matt Chapman hit a high pop-up, and was immediately called out on a routine invocation of the infield fly rule. Routine, except that Ramos wandered off of second base, perhaps confused when third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes let the ball drop, and was doubled off second base to end the inning.

This is how bad a base runner Heliot Ramos is right now. He got doubled off on a ball that hit the ground. At this point, the Giants should be happy he’s putting his pants on forward and not tying his shoelaces together before each game, because Ramos is showing zero awareness of the rules of baseball, physics, and yes, human decency, for what he’s making the fans watch.

The Giants got two runners on two more walks in the third, but Rafael Devers grounded into a double play to end the inning.

Adames started the game’s scoring when he led off the 4th inning with his 16th home run of the season.

Since the All-Star break, the Giants’ prized free-agent singing is hitting 16-for-41, with an on-base percentage of .468 and a slugging percentage of .780. The Giants are 2-9 in those games.

Two batters after Adames’ blast, Casey Schmitt doubled. That was the Giants’ second hit, and their last hit. also their last baserunner. Starter Bailey Falter, winning pitcher Braxton Ashcraft (3-1), and Dennis Santana combined to retired the last 16 Giants batters of the game. Only one of those Giants even got to a three-ball count, Matt Chapman in the 6th inning — he popped out.

The pitching was solid, but the Pirates defense was also solid. Two-time All-Star Bryan Reynolds, who the Giants traded for 130 games of Andrew McCutchen, robbed Ramos of a hit to end the 5th inning.

2023 Gold Glover Hayes dove to deny Adames a hit in the 9th.

The Pirates broke through against Tyler Rogers in the 8th inning. Of the first five batters Rogers faced, one struck out and four of them hit ground balls. None of those ground balls turned into outs. Nick Gonzales led off with a single to right field, and after striking out Oneil Cruz, Joc Pederson’s BFF Tommy Pham got an infield hit and so did Hayes to load the bases.

While Rogers was unlucky, the failure to get Pham out on a grounder to the pitcher is on him. And with the bases loaded, our old friend Joey Bart grounded a 1-2 sinker through the hole for a go-ahead single.

Peguero got an insurance run with a groundout to third, for his second RBI of the game and season, though getting an insurance run against the Giants’ late-inning offense is kind of like buying flood insurance when you live in Death Valley.

2-9 since the All-Star break. 54-54 on the season. 9th place in the National League. The 2025 season is teetering on the brink of cancellation.