San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Bats quieted, staff can’t keep up
SEATTLE — Offense is the Giants’ strength, by far, as seen in their 13 runs scored in the first two games of the season. But there will be days they don’t have it going on, and when that happens, their pitchers will have little leeway for mistakes.
That was the situation in the third and final game at TMobile Park on Saturday, with Chris Flexen and former A’s starter Kendall Graveman thoroughly befuddling the Giants and San Francisco starter Logan Webb getting perhaps a little too predictable with his changeup in a 40 loss to the Mariners.
“I feel like most teams are going to look for that pitch,” Webb said. “I’ve just got to execute better. I can’t leave it that far up. It’s frustrating, but it’s something I’ll work on.”
“I thought it was a mature outing,” manager Gabe Kapler said of Webb’s night. “The final linescore was pretty similar to some outings we saw last year, but what I thought was different was that he continued
to attack the strike zone, he even made some adjustments with that changeup.”
Webb was the Giants’ top pitcher by far this spring, allowing one run in 17 innings, and he mostly worked with Buster Posey. Saturday night’s catcher, Curt Casali, was behind the plate with Webb on the mound as an ingame sub for four innings during Webb’s final spring outing, which is when he allowed his only run of the spring. Kapler said that sometimes a different catcher with a little less familiarity can be a factor, but he’d liked the way the battery worked together. Webb echoed that, saying, “It was great.” Webb was seldom in trouble during the spring, but he responded well to early danger Saturday; with men at the corners and one out in the first, he struck out cleanup man Evan White, then rookie Taylor Trammell. In the third, Ty France cracked a solo homer to left, a linedrive shot on a changeup, and the next inning, White and Trammell hit backtoback doubles, both on changeups, for another run; Trammell’s was his first bigleague hit. Dylan Moore followed with yet another RBI double on a changeup.
“I just got a little too happy with it,” Webb said. “Maybe the second time through the lineup I should have mixed in another pitch, but it was more a matter of execution.”
The sixth was Webb’s final inning; he left with two on and one out and Matt Wisler took over. Wisler had a rough Giants debut Thursday, allowing two hits, a walk and three runs in the Mariners’ fiverun eighth, but Saturday, the slider specialist was super, striking out Luis Torrens and J.P. Crawford with, well, you guessed it. He threw 10 pitches, nine of them sliders.
Reyes Moronta allowed a solo homer by Mitch Haniger in the seventh, but another Giants reliever who’d struggled Thursday, veteran lefty José Álvarez, worked a 123 eighth with one strikeout.
The Giants were getting their first crack at a righthanded starter, and Flexen was making his first bigleague start since returning from a strong season in Korea. Tommy La Stella, signed to a threeyear deal this winter, was at DH and led off, and he went 1for2 with a walk. Donovan Solano remained hot, hitting two more singles. He’s 7for14 through three games.
Mike Yastrzemski, who’d gone hitless in his first 12 atbats, got a soft single in the eighth. Graveman, who was part of the A’s Josh Donaldson deal with Toronto, had Tommy John surgery three years ago, but he was outstanding Saturday, striking out five in two innings and throwing in the upper 90s.