On Sunday, in their broomstick loss to the San Diego Padres, the San Francisco Giants rolled out a lineup almost entirely devoid of players who had been on the roster when the year began. In the recap, I took note of the almost unfathomable turnover: two players from the Opening Day roster, one player from another team’s Opening Day roster, two players who began the year in AAA Sacramento, two players who began the year on other AAA teams, and two players who began the year in AA Richmond.
As if to
one-up themselves on Monday against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Giants turned it up a notch, removing Jung Hoo Lee from the lineup for a veteran off-day. The final tally:
One player from the Opening Day roster (Christian Koss)
One player from another Opening Day roster (Brett Harris)
Two players from AAA Sacramento (Bryce Eldridge and Grant McCray)
Two players from other AAA rosters (Shay Whitcomb and Andrew Knizner)
Three players from AA Richmond (Jonah Cox, Turner Hill, and Scott Bandura)
And for half the game, you, I, and everyone watching the game, were convinced that the Giants were going to get no-hit by Quinn Mathews.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Play Minor League games, win Minor League prizes. Play 95-loss games, flirt with 100 losses, which is still in play if the Giants turn their current four-game losing streak into a 15-game skid. Just tack on 11 more losses, how much can it hurt?
Yes, the Giants didn’t have a baserunner in the first inning, and they didn’t have a baserunner in the second inning, and they didn’t have a baserunner in the third inning, and Eldridge broke up the perfect game with a walk in the fourth inning, and they didn’t have a baserunner in the fifth inning, and then, mercifully, McCray bopped a double to lead off the sixth, and New Rock Bottom watch was called off.
The small victories we uncover this time of year. They really are something, aren’t they?
Stunningly, given the way that Mathews had carved through the Giants lineup, they even converted that first hit into a run, when Koss moved McCray to third on a productive groundout, and Cox brought him home with a single. With that, the deficit was cut in half, from 2-0 to 2-1, and the offense was off and running.
Off and running and stalling, unfortunately. McCray’s hit opened the floodgates for the knocks, but Cox’s RBI did not open the floodgates for the runs. Whitcomb and Hill hit back-to-back singles to open the seventh, but they would never score: Harris bunted them over, but a Lee pinch-hit fly ball fell short of being deep enough to score Whitcomb. After Knizner drew a walk to load the bases, Mathews was replaced by Justin Bruihl, and while McCray fought to the seventh pitch in a tough lefty-on-lefty matchup, he ultimately lost.
It wasn’t their only rally that fell short. Eldridge smacked a two-out single in the eighth, and a pinch-hitting Drew Gilbert made like his first name and drew a walk, but Hill lined one sharply into an infielder’s mitt. Lee smacked a one-out single in the ninth, and a pinch-hitting Drew Cavanaugh (another player who began the year in AA) followed it up with a walk, but McCray struck out and Koss grounded out and the game was over, as meek as it possibly could have been.
The Giants remained in it, however, thanks to the rarest of things (for them, that is): some good run suppression from the pitchers. It began with A Very Landen Roupp Start.
Ever since Roupp’s brilliant first month of the season, you can fit nearly all of his starts into two very similar but very different categories:
- Get into a lot of trouble, but somehow get out of it
- Get into a lot of trouble, and very much don’t get out of it
That’s kind of it. He has bad games, and he has good games where he looks like he might have a bad game but then somehow doesn’t. It’s basically like watching Camilo Doval, except for five innings instead of one, and with a little side sprinkle of bigotry to make you less upset when it doesn’t work.
Except in this game he introduced a third category of start:
- Get into a lot of trouble, somehow get out of it, then get into more trouble and the bullpen can’t get out of it
Roupp gave up a single to the very first batter he faced, but then immediately induced a double play. He walked the next batter, then got out of the inning.
He gave up a leadoff double in the second, followed by a two-out walk, but again got out of the inning.
In the third, it was back-to-back two-out singles that started an ultimately futile Cardinals rally.
After a clean fourth, Roupp got back into trouble in the fifth, ceding a one-out single, a stolen base, and a walk. With 88 pitches to his name, and the Giants being very careful with him these days, Roupp’s night was over. He had bent without breaking time and time again, but his own fate was now out of his hands, and instead in Reiver Sanmartin’s.
Sanmartin gave up on RBI single on the very first pitch he threw, which was followed by a walk, another RBI single, and the slow march to the mound from Tony Vitello.
From there, the Giants bullpen was, shockingly, nearly perfect. Joel Kuhnel escaped the bases-loaded, one-out jam, and tossed in a perfect sixth for good measure. Trent Harris, who I think is no longer auditioning for a role in next year’s bullpen and is instead auditioning for a high-leverage role in next year’s bullpen, was a dominant force in a perfect seventh. Carson Seymour easily worked around a leadoff single in the eighth.
But the damage was done by the bottom of the fifth, and by a Minor League offense. You get what you pay for and, well … I’m guessing none of you are paying much for this.
