To begin a do-or-die pair of games in Chase Field, the Giants unraveled.
Their defense gifted the Diamondbacks runs. Their All-Star starting pitcher, tapped for the high-leverage game despite a nagging injury, never looked quite right. Tasked with a major comeback as the only path to victory, the Giants’ order fell flat against Arizona’s leaky bullpen.
In an 8-4 loss to Arizona, almost everything went wrong for the Giants (76-75). Alex Cobb left after two innings as his hip impingement apparently became too unbearable, and defensive lapses donated an already dynamic Diamondbacks lineup too many extra runs to out-hit.
The Giants can still salvage the season series — and its accompanying playoff tiebreaker — with a win Wednesday. But none of the first of a two-game set in Phoenix went as San Francisco intended.
The Giants appeared to play with the requisite urgency from the beginning. It wouldn’t last.
LaMonte Wade Jr. cracked a leadoff triple past a misplay in right field by Corbin Carroll. Wade beat Arizona’s relay throw by a hair, then just barely slid past Tommy Pham’s throw from left field on Mike Yastrzemski’s sacrifice fly.
In a must-win series, it took San Francisco eight pitches from Cy Young contender Zac Gallen to take a lead.
Then Joc Pederson, who entered the night 2-for-21 lifetime against Gallen, skied a home run to straight-away center field. The designated hitter has been working on his launch angle, and his solo shot showed as much.
The first inning was the type of jab the Giants needed to throw, and it came from the veterans responsible for stepping up and carrying San Francisco during the most important stretch of the season.
But it wasn’t a knockout blow. In fact, just about everything fell apart from there.
Cobb, who’s been dealing with a hip impingement that’s gotten progressively worse for months, winced after several deliveries while he gave up a first-inning run on two singles.
The next inning, Carroll — the catalyst in the first inning — smacked a two-out double to drive in two more for the Diamondbacks. Then the National League Rookie of the Year frontrunner then turned the inning on its head with his elite athleticism.
Caroll stole third, jarring the ball out of Wilmer Flores’ glove with his feet-first slide. He then raced home as Flores collected the loose ball, and Ketel Marte scored behind him all the way from first on Flores’ errant throw home. The chaotic play gave Arizona a 5-2 lead without a ball in play.
In the span of seconds, the Giants added two errors to their already league-leading 107. The Giants showed an improved defense for most of the season, but regressed in big moments during their crucial September.
All four runs of Arizona’s second-inning runs came after a Geraldo Perdomo two-out double to left field that Mitch Haniger took a poor route on.
To make matters worse, Cobb left the game after one pitch in the third inning in evident discomfort. The Giants lined up their aces, Cobb and Logan Webb, for this two-game set, and the former lasted 52 laborious pitches. Given Cobb’s injury and SF’s precarious playoff odds, they could be the last pitches he throws this year.
Alex Wood gave up two more Diamondbacks runs in the fourth, ballooning Arizona’s lead to 7-2.
By the time the Giants knocked out Gallen to get to Arizona’s shaky bullpen, they trailed 8-4 in the sixth. Wood heroically provided starter’s length out of the bullpen, just like he did last week when the Giants came back to stun the Guardians.
Only this game, with time to pounce provided by Wood, the Giants didn’t have a comeback in them. They didn’t advance a runner into scoring position after the fifth inning, a stretch that included a spectacular catch in center field by Alek Thomas. Overall, San Francisco lost the hitting battle 13 to six.
Even against a bullpen unit ranked 21st in ERA, the Giants fell short. In one of the biggest games of their season, they made too many mistakes to overcome.
