© Stan Szeto-USA TODAY Sports
Following a stand-off with mother nature, a baseball game was eventually played.
The San Francisco Giants hosted the Oakland Athletics for the first game at Oracle Park in 2019. Top pitching prospect Shaun Anderson got the start against A’s right-hander Liam Hendricks.
Right off the bat, Anderson found himself in trouble. Surrendering a walk to Matt Chapman, followed by a single to Stephen Piscotty, the A’s struck first on a RBI single by Jurickson Profar.
After a busy first inning, Anderson settled down and completed three solid innings of work. Before his start today, he had only pitched a handful of innings in Arizona. After a productive outing tonight, the 24-year old finishes the spring with 5.1 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 5 K’s and 1 BB. Anderson came out of the gates throwing high-90’s, and certainly showed why he is the teams top pitching prospect.
This, from Shaun Anderson, will work. pic.twitter.com/1F8HTnejrT
— Alex Pavlovic (@PavlovicNBCS) March 26, 2019
The Giants offense was quiet on the night. Both Joe Panik and Brandon Crawford singled in their first at-bats but were ultimately stranded. Despite the lack of production, Giants hitters did put together good at-bats. Drawing seven walks (Duggar, Posey, Belt, Parra, Reed, Joe, Avelino), the Giants saw the ball well against the A’s nine pitchers.
Ty Blach entered the game in the top of the 7th inning. Blach gave up a lead-off double to Chad Pinder who would later come around to score on a Marcus Semien RBI-double. The A’s would continue to add on, as Semien would also score on a bloop single by Ramon Laureano. Surrendering a walk to Beau Taylor, Blach would then allow a bases-clearing, two-run double off the bat of Mark Canha, extending the A’s lead to 5-0.
The Giants rallied in the bottom of the 7th inning. Newly-acquired Michael Reed led off the inning with a walk, followed by a Tom Murphy (also newly-acquired) single, which was followed by a walk from (you guessed it) newly-acquired Connor Joe. Steven Duggar would come to the plate with the bases loaded, nobody out and deliver an RBI single to put the Giants on the board. Abiatal Avelino would keep the line moving with a bases-loaded walk of his own to force in another run. Yet another newly-acquired Giant, Erik Kratz brought the Giants within one, with a two-run single.
Side-arm throwing pitching prospect Tyler Rogers would enter in the eighth inning and strike out two in an impressive one-two-three inning. Following both teams rallies in the seventh inning, the remaining two innings would end without much action.
The Giants would go down quietly in the ninth inning, falling to the A’s by a score of 5-4.
