A team effort
Even after a resilient extra-innings win on Wednesday, a complete game for Robbie Ray and the team as a whole on Thursday, there were multiple signs that Friday’s opener against the Oakland West Sacramento Viva Las Vegas Athletics might be a rough one for the San Francisco Giants.
First off, they’d be facing a lefty starter. Southpaws have been one of the monkeys on the Giants back this first half. The offense has managed just a 76 wRC+ against those arms going into Friday’s game. Since June 1st, they’ve performed even worse, their 63 wRC+ has been the lowest in baseball over that span (the mark dropped to 61 wRC+ after this one).
Second, the specific lefty they’d square off against was J.P. Sears. This was his fourth start against the Giants in the past calendar year. Two of them have been excellent, dominant even, allowing just one run over 14.2 innings with 18 K. But in his last outing, he got fed to the Wilmer Flores woodchipper. Offensively inept and shutout by a starter, or a three-homer game — which do you think is the anomaly?
The third flashing Danger, Proceed with Caution sign leading up to first pitch: Justin Verlander was the Giants’ starter, which means whether he pitched well or not, he wouldn’t get a win, and San Francisco had a decent shot of losing the game.
He didn’t, and they did.
Verlander lasted just three innings, giving up a season-high 6 earned runs. The Giants are now 4 – 10 in his starts. The Athletics peppered him in the 2nd with four doubles plating four runs. They feasted on his secondary pitches and had a clear opposite field approach against him. Both Jacob Wilson and Brent Rooker in two-out, two-strike holes served Verlander breaking balls into gaps for RBI two-baggers that pretty much ensured a quick exit for the veteran.
A’s players just kept trading places with each other at second. They’d go on to collect 6 doubles, and 9 total extra base hits, including a 471-foot shot by Denzel Clarke off Mason Black, in the 11-2 rout. An unscheduled Fourth of July fireworks display that the A’s were kind enough to treat their visitors to. And who even likes fireworks? They fill up the night sky with vestigial smoke so we can’t even see the stars (which are just space fireworks). So bright in our eyeballs, so loud in our ears, spooking all the neighborhood cats and dogs. No thanks!
For Verlander, it was a crappy way to celebrate the 249th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a crappy way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his MLB debut, and well, a crappy way to spend a Friday night.
14 starts in 2025 and still winless — oof.
It was obviously an utterly forgettable night team-wide. Their bats, who looked to be warming up in the second half of the Arizona series, went quiet again. The A’s accumulated a six-run lead quick, but the Giants had opportunities to respond, to get themselves back into the game. Sears (6 IP, 0 R, 3 H, 2 BB, 6 K) retired the line-up in order over the first three frames, but in the next three innings, the Giants had six at bats with multiple runners on, in which one swing would halve the A’s lead, and 8 at-bats with a runner in scoring position. The chance to ignite a light show of their own was there, they had the ammunition — just the matches were damp, the lighter didn’t work. No spark meant no show in the middle innings while the A’s continued to draw oohs and ahhs with their fizz, pop, and bang.
They’d finish the night 0-for-11 with RISP and strand 7 runners on base.
Defensively too this thing was a dud. The Giants were sloppy with the gloves from the jump, and had about as many bungles as hits.
Heliot Ramos bobbled two exchanges in the first two innings. Sergio Alcantara, making his Giant debut and getting the start at third base, had the first playable ball bounced his way clang off his mitt. Patrick Bailey missed a pop-up behind home plate. Clarke shot a tough but catchable drive to deep center that turned Jung Hoo Lee around at the last minute and kicked off his glove for a triple. Brett Wisely, web gem extraordinaire from Thursday night, misread a bounder to third in the 7th that should’ve ended the inning. Instead, the Giants’ third official error of the game, set-up Clarke’s mammoth shot to left-center.
None of these proved overtly costly or directly changed the final result, but that didn’t make it any easier to watch.
The Giants might be the away team in this series, but the A’s are the interlopers here. They are living out of suitcases, strung between three places across two states. Their jerseys are even divided: one arm in Sacramento, the other 560 miles away in Las Vegas. Their gripes have been loud and well-documented. They don’t want to be playing at Sutter Health Park, sharing a clubhouse with San Francisco’s Triple-A affiliate, and their home record, with the lowest win-total in the American League, proves that. And yet, the Giants, playing in front of what was essentially a home crowd, couldn’t capitalize on the opportunities this muddled situation provided.
Add it to the list of recent vexations.