Defense digs hole too deep to escape
Which of these is inaccurate? The Giants didn’t hit well. The Giants didn’t defend well. The Giants didn’t pitch well. The box score suggests all of the above, but the box score is misleading because starter Logan Webb did pitch well and deserved better in Monday night’s 64 loss to the Astros.
Webb was the victim of shoddy defense, which has been the story line way too often for the 2020 Giants, and he was forced to labor through an ugly third inning that decided the opener of a threegame series in Houston.
The Giants trailed 61 in the ninth before rallying for three runs on Donovan Solano’s double and Brandon Craw
ford’s tworun single. The game ended with two aboard on pinchhitter Evan Longoria’s fly out.
The Giants were playing a team fresh off a sweep in Oakland that was marred by Sunday’s benchesclearing brawl involving Astros coach Alex Cintron, who goaded Ramon Laureano into charging the Houston bench.
It gave Gabe Kapler, the Giants’ firstyear manager, an opportunity to meet with his staff to reiterate the importance of the health and safety protocols and never conduct such buffoonery in these socialdistancing times.
“I think it’s a reminder,” Kapler said, “to be especially aware and sensitive that right now everybody has his stress levels at their highest because not only are we combining the stress of a majorleague baseball season and a modified shortened spring as it is, but we’re also doing it under conditions we’ve never seen before.
“Just the awareness that we’re probably already a little bit emotionally charged will help us stay cool under conditions that would normally force us to move out onto the field.”
The Astros are scuffling under Dusty Baker, who became manager to provide accountability and maturity to a group responsible for a cheating scandal and tainted World Series championship.
Unlike the A’s over the weekend, the Giants didn’t put up much of a fight Monday. They committed three more errors to pad their season total to a majorshigh 21 and didn’t get a hit off Lance McCullers Jr. until the seventh inning when Solano (who else?) doubled down the line in left.
Poor Webb. The 23yearold hadn’t yielded more than one earned run in any of his first three starts, but he was charged with five runs Monday — three of which were unearned, thanks to the Giants’ latest sequence of sloppiness.
The third inning started when Jose Altuve singled past Solano at third, a makeable play to his left. Josh Reddick grounded to second, an easy out for Mauricio Dubon, but Chadwick Tromp was called for catcher’s interference, an alarming circumstance considering it was the team’s fourth of the year.
Tyler Heineman was charged with the first three after the coaching staff asked him to move up to better frame low breaking pitches. It was Tromp’s first. And by the way, this year’s Giants have more catcher’s interferences in 18 games this year than Buster Posey has in his 1,258game career (three).
Reddick was given first base. Webb walked Alex Bregman to load the bases, and Michael Brantley hit a soft fly ball that bounced on the thirdbase line and into the stands for a tworun groundrule double.
Yuli Gurriel grounded to third, and Solano had a play at the plate but made an errant throw to permit the run. Carlos Correa’s grounder to Dubon could have been an inningending double play, but he was a tad slow on the release after quickly spinning to throw.
Another run scored, making it 50. It’s tough on a pitcher to register five or six outs in an inning, and Webb’s pitch count was so high that he lasted just two batters into the next inning, pulled from the game after Solano made his second error.
Kapler said before the game that Webb was on target to push beyond 80 pitches and go at least six innings. Well, he got to 81 but lasted just 31⁄3 innings.
Longoria was given a rest, which is why Solano played third. Solano extended his hit streak to 15 games, and Austin Slater’s homer in the eighth, his third in three days, put the Giants on the board.