It was unclear all season if the San Francisco Giants would call up top prospect Bryce Eldridge from the minors, but an injury to Dominic Smith and a slump from the New York Mets made the team pull the trigger in hopes of jump-starting their offense. Monday in Arizona, the offense remained dead in an 8-1 loss.
Eldridge went 0-for-3 in his big league debut, but he had a lot of company in his hitlessness. Besides Casey Schmitt, who went 2-for-3 with a solo home run, not a single member of the Giants
lineup hit safely. The team fell back to .500 at 75-75 — half a game behind the victorious Arizona Diamondbacks.
Things were so dreary Monday night that the second-best Giants highlight of the night was a fly ball out. After grounding out and striking out in his first two times at the plate, Eldridge crushed a ball over 400 feet to center field which ended up a long out that would reportedly have been a home run in 23 of the 30 major league ballparks. Oracle Park was not one of them.
Reliever Taylor Rashi certainly thought the ball was gone, given his dejected reaction to the crack of the bat, but alas, the drive was only a long, dramatic out. It’s a sign of how inept the San Francisco offense was that Eldridge batted 5th in the lineup, yet only came to the plate three times.
Starter Kai-Wei Teng started off the game walking Geraldo Perdomo and hitting Ketel Marte with a pitch, but rebounded by striking out Corbin Carroll and Gabriel Moreno. Teng was on the verge of getting out of the inning safely, but threw the ball away trying to pick off Marte and Perdomo scored the game’s first run.
Teng finished with five Ks in four innings, punching out Carroll twice, while giving up two hits. Bob Melvin pulled him after 73 pitches, perhaps protecting the 26-year-old’s arm in only his 11th start of the season across the minors and majors.
Matt Gage relieved Teng and things started going badly in the 6th inning. Melvin pulled him after Carroll hit a leadoff double, which made him the Giants’ most successful pitcher of the inning. It also made him the losing pitcher after Joel Peguero came in and walked the bases loaded, then gave up a two-run single to Ildemaro Vargas.
Drew Gilbert threw out Vargas trying to stretch to a double, but Joey Lucchesi couldn’t stop the bleeding. Pinch-hitter Jordan Lawlar doubled in a run. Catcher James McCann went deep to make it 6-1. Then after Jake McCarthy reached on Schmitt’s throwing error, Perdomo tripled him home.
For the inning, Arizona had a single, two doubles, a triple, and a home run, plus two walks, and an error. Peguero’s ERA went up by 1.21 ERA. Lucchesi’s rose by 0.47. The Giants chances of winning went from slim to none.
Zac Gallen got his 12th win of the season for the D-Backs, versus 14 losses, and moved to 8-6 in his career against the Giants. The only team Gallen has defeated more is the Colorado Rockies, against whom Gallen is 9-1. He only gave up two hits in six innings Monday, walking one and striking out six.
The D-Backs bullpen was even better, with Rashi and Jalen Beeks retiring the final nine batters of the night. Arizona may have received some extra anti-Giants karma with their own roster move before the contest, where they designated former orange-and-black hurler Anthony DeSclafani.
In other words, Disco’s available. Considering how the pitching’s been going during the team’s three-game losing streak, he might not be any worse than their current options.
