By the end of the third inning, Friday’s game against the Padres didn’t seem to promise much of a contest. The tally: 7-1 in favor of the visiting San Diegans after a barrage of extra basehits and two-out knocks. A
nthony Molina, who looked somewhat sharp in the 1st with two strikeouts with his four-seam, ran out of ideas in the 2nd and 3rd. He pressed hard on that fastball and the Padres bats welcomed it. Jackson Merrill bounced an outside fastball over the wall for a ground-rule double to start
the 2nd. Molina retired the next two hitters he faced but couldn’t find a way out of the frame cleanly. Dustin Harris deflected another elevated fastball to score Merrill. Freddy Fermin punched another 340 feet, easily scoring Harris from first.
Molina tried to adapt, shifting off his primary weapon his second time through the San Diego order, but nothing worked. Jake Cronenworth set the tone in the 3rd with a feisty 8-pitch scuffle that ended with a 107 MPH single off a change-up. Luis Campusano plated him by punishing a hanging slider. That double would be the first of four RBI extra base knocks in the inning. Seven Padres reached, five scored in all. Molina became less as a road-block and more as a facilitator, the operator of a fast food drive-thru, the In-N-Out at Tejon Ranch, taking each hitter’s order, efficiently moving the high-volume of customers from window to window before sending them on their way with exactly what they asked for.
As Molina’s fortunes plummeted, San Diego starter, Robbie Ray, making his first start against the Giants since his trade, steadied himself after a prolonged 1st inning.
After a run came in on a Bryce Eldridge single, the veteran lefty recorded two outs to strand two runners in the 1st, then cruised through the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th allowing just one walk.
If Molina was an In-N-Out employee, Ray worked at Del Taco. Any customers venturing into the drive-thru sat there waiting in lonely limbo. Cracks and discolorations obscured half the menu. No disembodied voice came from the speaker. At the first window, tinted glass, firmly shut. At the second window, orders were botched. You wanted a Crunchtada Tostada? Here’s an All-American Burgertaco instead. Harassed, harangued, or ignored — with Ray in charge any hope a Giant had of completing the trek through the drive-thru was abandoned.
This performance was a much-needed step up, because Padre Ray has been a bit of a mixed bag. He posted a somewhat solid 3.42 ERA over his first 5 starts, though that’s a far cry from the dominant numbers he logged that raised his trade-value in the previous two months as a Giant. Bad habits have resurfaced. Fatigue has reared its head. Over 26.1 innings in August, he walked 16 batters and only struck out 19. His last start against the Yankees was his shortest of the season, giving up 5 runs on 5 hits and 4 walks over 2.1 innings pitched.
So allowing one run on two hits over four innings was certainly some much needed sunshine for the southern California transplant. But those good vibes proved brief. Ray treated his old home crowd to a familiar sight in the 5th. A vintage Ray de-railing thanks to a couple of walks and a long-ball. Nice to be on the other end of one of those.
A lead-off double by Andrew Knizner was followed up with back-to-back walks to Andrew Koss and Jonah Cox, loading the bases before the hottest hitter on the planet, Rafael Devers. Ray tried pitching him backwards. He started him off with a slider, low and away, for a called strike. The next pitch, in retrospect, was probably a palate cleanser. A distraction, a throw-away, a joke to set up something elevated and hard — but Devers ended up having the last laugh. The knuckle-curve lazily rolled out of Ray’s hands as it always does. It came in slow and low and much easier to track than the slider. Devers, as he has shown before, is an excellent golfer: Head down, eyes down, bat as driver, teeing off the plate.
The grand slam changed the feeling of the game if not the eventual outcome. Molina still got the “L,” and Ray, who saw his way through the 5th, held onto the win. What looked to be a blow-out became a tense affair, requiring SD closer Mason Miller to survive some nervy moments to record his 35th save. Yunor Marte took the mound for Molina in the 4th and tossed five shutout frames. He stranded two runners in the 5th, worked around a bad pickoff throw in the 6th, as well as a lead-off triple by Fernando Tatis Jr. in the 8th to keep the Giants offense within striking distance.
And they had their chances too. Eldridge led off the 8th with a double but, mirroring Tatis, couldn’t get beyond third base. In the 9th, all with two outs, the Giants put the tying run on base and in scoring position against Miller. Tension ratcheted up when Jonah Cox reached on a bunt single, pushing Nate Furman to second, bringing Devers up as the winning run. The collision of power arm vs. power bat didn’t culminate in any explosive finality though, Devers worked a walk, passing the baton to the kid. Echoes of Wednesday’s comeback against St. Louis could be heard as Eldridge gained early count leverage with a 2-0 count. Visions of well-placed slap singles played in front of our eyes. Fans felt the warm spirit of Wilmer Flores descend, recalling his walk-off walk against Miller two seasons ago. As good as Miller has been, as bad as this Giants team has been, hope remained in its seats.
But Miller found his way back into the at-bat with an elevated slider that clipped the top of the zone upon review. A tough break that seemed to completely change the dynamics of the confrontation. Eldridge seemed to shift onto his heels. Looking fastball, he chased at a terrible pitch well inside and down to even the count. He fought off the third consecutive slider at the bottom of the zone, and perhaps expecting a fourth, watched as a 102.8 MPH fastball zipped over the plate.
Just a devastatingly perfect pitch for strike three, for the 27th out, to squash a potential comeback, to end the game.
