The San Francisco Giants had gone three games without a hit with a runner in scoring position. The offense just couldn’t string together anything of substance. They had become reliant on an inside-the-park-homer or solo shot from Luis Arraez, which is like relying on lightning strikes to be your home’s main provider of electricity. Unsurprisingly, the Giants lost all three of those games.
The spate of innings without a RISP knock dated back to Jung Hoo Lee’s 7th inning double last Tuesday, and including
the first two innings on Saturday’s contest in which a lead-off double by Willy Adames was promptly squandered in the 2nd, extended to 31 consecutive offensive frames until it was mercifully snapped with a Casey Schmitt bloop with Jung Hoo Lee standing at second.
But in true 2026 Giants fashion, even that long-awaited hit wasn’t enough to score a run. True to form, the bloop blooped, spinning indecisively in the airspace above shallow right-center, buffeted and carried by the winds coursing from left to right, as outfielder Nick Bolte charged in. Would he catch it? Would it find grass? Lee couldn’t be sure, and by the time it fell back to earth, the only option was a 90-foot progression to third. Station-to-station — sounds about right for this team. Laughable too, how this team found a way to technically snap their skid while still managing to hold onto the spirit of the slump. This feeling grew even more palpable when this strike-3 call from Luis Severino to Rafael Devers was upheld.
But just when this long ribbon of recent ineffectiveness, stretching from Chavez Ravine to the banks of the American River, began to tighten around the line-up’s neck, Willy Adames decided to think opposite field, and slapped a first-pitch single into right field to plate two runs.
They had done it! The streak demon banished! The floodgates opened and the river of run-production and efficiency flowed!
Not exactly. Adames was thrown out at second to end the inning on the play. And while the offense did an impressive job of accruing 17 at-bats with runners in scoring position, they managed just three hits and left 11 runners stranded on base. 8 of their 11 strikeouts came with a runner in scoring position. Five of Severino’s seven strikeouts came in situations when a ball-in-play would’ve either advanced the runner or plated another run.
This is a happy recap, I promise. San Francisco did win this game 6 to 4, but this inefficiency with runners threatening and lack of situational hitting meant that, despite all the opportunity and semblance of control, a rough outing from a reliever, one decisive swing from an opponent’s bad, turned a breezy weekend win into a bit of a nail-biter.
With a 6-1 lead, Erik Miller, in his first game back from the IL, walked the first two batters he faced in the 8th (extending Nick Kurtz’s on-base streak to 39 games). Tony Vitello chose to swap him for Caleb Kilian against the right-handed Brent Rooker and after the mound visit, the call to the bullpen, the warm-up pitches, Kilian served up a first pitch slider that Rooker obliterated.
The Boog booged it — walk, walk, 3-run dinger, and while it didn’t have the same effect as Kurtz’s Boog from Friday, it was a timely reminder that few leads are safe, that there’s never a strategic time to not-score or not pad a lead.
If San Francisco just relied on the two hits with RISP that scored runs (Adames, and Matt Chapman’s RBI double in the 7th), Rooker’s 3-run shot would’ve proved decisive, disheartening, and so so so depressing.
Thank god for Casey Schmitt and homers. Schmitt’s two homer game provided the other half of the Giants’ 6-run output. His team-leading seventh homer of the year came off Severino in the 1st, and his eighth, pinged off the right field foul pole in the 5th to give San Francisco a 5-0 lead at the time.
A diverse offensive portfolio. Singles with runners on base and homers after walks — that’s what we’ve been missing. Someone alert Buster and Tony that I’ve figured it out!
Good pitching helps too, and Trevor McDonald appears to be a good pitcher. In his third start of the year (and fifth of his career), he earned his second (and fourth) quality start, allowing just one earned run over 6.2 IP while needing just 90 pitches to do it.
The secret: throw strikes, make them hit the ball. The secret: keep the ball grounded when they hit the ball. With his dive-y sinker leading the charge, McDonald induced 9 groundball outs. Two of the A’s five hits on the day didn’t leave the infield. The two doubles he surrendered came with two outs and nobody on base.
The secret: field your position well. In the 5th, with a runner on and a run already scored, McDonald won a 3-2 battle against Kurtz with a heavy inside sinker that the big boy recognized but couldn’t help but offer at. Immediately after, Shea Langeliers lined the third out into McDonald’s glove.
He then induced a stylish 1-6-3 double play in the 7th to erase a lead-off HBP.
The Rooker 3-run shot upped the heart rate for sure, but ultimately thanks to Schmitt, just enough knocks with runners in scoring position, and an excellent outing from Trevor McDonald, San Francisco evened the series in West Sacramento.
