It all falls apart in 8-run inning
By Henry Schulman
It might have been the best defensive play Conor Gillaspie has made in either of his two stints with the Giants. He charged a slow roller by Hunter Renfroe, gloved it, and in a flash got the ball into his bare hand and whipped a throw to Buster Posey, who tagged Yangervis Solarte at the plate to prevent a run.
This play is highlighted for a reason. Without it, the Padres’ eight-run sixth inning and the Giants’ 12-4 loss Saturday night at AT&T Park might have been worse.
Fans who had to endure 11 San Diego runs
that scored in the span of 14 hitters over the sixth and seventh innings, each of which featured a three-run homer off reliever Neil Ramirez, might have seen an even bigger number for the visitors on the scoreboard.
As it was, the Giants took one of their most hideous losses in a month of ugly.
They get one more chance Sunday to complete a winning homestand and finally notch their 10th win before one of the franchise’s most forgettable Aprils ends.
This was not a game that Ramirez will remember fondly. He became the first Giants reliever to allow two three-run homers in a game since Joe Nathan in 2003.
One was a Wil Myers blast in the eight-run sixth that nearly reached the walkway beneath the Coke bottle. The other was hit by Allen Cordoba, a Rule 5 pick who was playing rookie ball last year.
Neither of those homers was Ramirez’s worst sin, for he did something only one other big-league pitcher had accomplished: walking former Giant Hector Sanchez with the bases loaded. It’s hard to walk Sanchez at all. He had just 30 in 706 plate appearances.
“I got ahead of him,” Ramirez said. “I’ve got to put that guy away right there. That’s on me.”
The Sanchez walk with one out in the sixth gave San Diego a 4-3 lead. Manuel Margot’s single made it 5-3 and a super play by shortstop Christian Arroyo on Cory Spangenberg’s grounder got one out but was not enough to prevent a sixth Padres run. Myers then hammered a fastball deep into the left-field seats to make it 9-3.
Cordoba’s homer against Ramirez in the seventh expanded the lead to 12-4, making it hard to remember that the Giants actually led 3-1 and that Matt Cain continued his resurgence with five innings of one-run ball. After a rough first start in San Diego on April 7, Cain has allowed only three runs in 23 innings over four games.
This has been a month for the Giants of trying to find a positive needle in a haystack of hell. Cain’s pitching might be the shiniest.
“I still want to go out there knowing every fifth day that this is what I’m going to get,” said Cain, trying to temper any thought that he has it all figured out. “You don’t want to get ahead of yourself because this game can be humbling.”
As manager Bruce Bochy and two of his relievers discovered.
Bochy pulled Cain after five innings and 86 pitches because the pitcher was coming off a hamstring tweak. All looked good when Brandon Belt hit a two-run single in the fifth to give Cain and the Giants a 3-1 lead.
Bochy handed the ball to Chris Stratton hoping the rookie long man could go the final four innings to save other relievers. Mark Melancon was off limits after working three days in a row and four of the previous five. Bochy also wanted to stay away from his lone lefty, Steven Okert, who has pitched eight times since his mid-month arrival.
But Stratton retired just one of his six hitters — on the Gillaspie play — and allowed San Diego to tie the game before Bochy turned to Ramirez.
“It’s tough,” Bochy said, “when the two guys you’re looking at to give you length both struggled.” Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: hschulman@sfchronicle. com Twitter: @hankschulman