Sergio Estrada-USA TODAY Sports
For six innings, Kevin Gausman and the defense behind him seemed to be facing off with each other. The All-Star on the mound was vying to pitch a no-hitter; the gloves behind him dazzling through a perfect game of their own. Four remarkable plays gave Gausman a chance, which would get away.
It was not a near perfect start nor defensive effort that decided the game, though, on a day the Giants’ offense was decidedly imperfect.
San Francisco could not figure out St. Louis’ Kwang Hyun Kim, who went seven strong, scoreless innings, in a 5-3 Giants loss at Oracle Park in front of 32,644 that snapped a three-game winning streak and, for the moment at least, dropped them out of first place outright.
The Giants (53-31) are in a deadlock with the Dodgers at the top of the NL West, both owning the best record in baseball before Los Angeles finished play Monday. The Padres were four games back before they began play.
The defense was exceptional, Gausman, too, but the offense did not have an at-bat with a runner in scoring position until the ninth inning. A team that prides itself on working pitchers allowed Kim to have a seamless day at the office, needing just 89 pitches. Alex Dickerson pinch-hit a home run in the eighth against Giovanny Gallegos to avoid the Giants getting shut out for a fifth time this season.
The Giants only had three hits and drew two walks against the lefty Kim with a lineup that only featured Brandon Crawford as a lefty hitter. The bottom of the order — a combination of Jaylin Davis, Steven Duggar, Curt Casali and the pitchers/pinch-hitters — went 0-for-11.
Gausman lasted seven excellent innings and was charged with two runs surrendered in his first start since being named an All-Star. For 6 1/3 no-hit innings, the matinee looked a lot more special than it wound up being.
Gausman’s roll ended in the seventh, when noted Giants killer Nolan Arenado fought off a two-strike splitter that looked so much like the offering that made Cardinals batters whiff 13 times on the afternoon. The next pitch, another splitter, Arenado golfed to left for a clean single. After a Tommy Edman infield single, Matt Carpenter hit a rare well-hit drive to left-center that bounced off the wall and away from Austin Slater. By the time Slater chased it down and threw in, Arenado was sliding into third and the Giants were down two.
The Cardinals added insurance runs in the eighth and ninth against Zack Littell and Jimmie Sherfy, neither of whom could get third strikes on several batters. That mattered when the Giants rallied in a two-run ninth.
For much of the game, it felt as if the Giants were about to break through. They made solid contact often and had the nine hardest-hit balls of the game through four innings, but no runs to show for it. They couldn’t find hits, and they continually robbed hits from St. Louis.
For 19 outs, it felt as if Gausman might make history.
There was a nice round applause in the first inning, when it took three batters for infielder-turned-left fielder Thairo Estrada to be tested. Shoehorned into the lineup for his righty bat, Estrada went back to the wall on an Arenado drive, went up and made a nice leaping catch. It wasn’t Mike Tauchman, but it wasn’t far off, either.
There was a larger response from the fans in the fourth, when another Giants killer in Paul Goldschmidt lofted a bloop into shallow center. Donovan Solano was positioned nicely and had a bead on it, sprinting and lunging like a wide receiver to secure the out.
There was not just an ovation but a feeling of expectancy in the fifth, when Jaylin Davis got a late break on a Harrison Bader flare to right. Davis, whose speed might be the best on the team, flashed it as he took off sprinting in and went airborne, spearing the ball out of the air. Gausman had issued one of his two walks a batter earlier to Carpenter, who was doubled off at first base.
That was incredible ?pic.twitter.com/imXTPnmfR1
— KNBR (@KNBR) July 5, 2021
And there were fans on the edges of their seats, wondering if this was really happening, when Edmundo Sosa ripped one down the third-base line. Wilmer Flores, in the lineup because of his bat and because of Evan Longoria’s injury, dove to his right and picked a bad hop. Darin Ruf picked a Flores hop, too, and the help from Gausman was coming from everywhere.
At the end of the day, everywhere except the Giants’ offense.