The Angels went all-in at the trade deadline, trading for C.J. Cron, Randal Grichuk, Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez in hopes of making a postseason push with potentially their last two months of Shohei Ohtani.
The Giants made a tiny ripple in the transaction pond, adding veteran AJ Pollock and utilityman Mark Mathias for essentially nothing.
Anaheim remains winless since the deadline as Mathias helped the Giants hand the Angels their seventh straight loss.
Mathias’ two-run single in the ninth inning off All-Star closer Carlos Estévez helped the Giants surge to a six-run, comeback rally. They’d gone all of July without scoring more than three runs in a single regulation inning. That became a footnote with their massive avalanche of hitting.
The Giants (62-51) kept the Angels writhing by breaking out of their omnipresent offensive slump in the last possible moment. Logan Webb helped set up the comeback with a strong start and Wilmer Flores, Thairo Estrada and J.D. Davis supplied enough power to overcome shoddy fielding in a 8-3 victory.
The backdrop of Monday night’s game was one of the fledgling Angels against a Giants team that has hit a dry spell offensively. Pollock, the Giants’ lone trade deadline acquisition, hit third. Even though Giants lineups rarely maintain their shape through the duration of a game, inserting a .169 hitter third said all there is to know about the state of the club’s offense.
Until more Giants hitters regress to their means, the only way out of this rut is searching for lightning and bottles. Pollock went 0-for-3, stranding Thairo Estrada in scoring position in the first, striking out looking and stumbling in the outfield for a brutal defensive misplay.
Webb probably knew he wouldn’t get much run support. Even after striking out Brandon Drury to eliminate a threat in the third inning, he yelled into his glove in frustration.
Shortly after Webb turned the inning over, Wilmer Flores doubled and Patrick Bailey drove him home with a lined single.
As the Giants’ lineup has floundered, Flores has done everything he can to reel it out from underwater. He’s been one of the most productive hitters in baseball in the same time the Giants have taken up the rear in most offensive categories.
Then, with a 1-0 lead, Webb struck out the side in the fourth. At that point, the sport’s innings leader had five punchouts and seven groundouts.
For over a month now, the Giants have made up for their offensive ineptitude with pitching and defense. That wasn’t the case over the weekend in Oakland, though, or in the later innings in Anaheim.
Webb finally cracked in the sixth inning, once his pitch count rose into the triple digits. Ohtani beat him for a leadoff double up the middle, and former Rockies slugger C.J. Cron tied the game with a two-out single.
In every matchup, Webb kept everything low and away to Ohtani. The superstar still tallied a single, double, stolen base and run off the Giants’ ace.
Webb couldn’t escape the sixth inning, as a costly error from Luis Matos in center field allowed Cron to score from first on a routine single. Matos dropped the ball twice in center and Bailey couldn’t corral the eventual relay throw. Both rookies got charged with an error on the damaging play.
Davis immediately picked up his teammates. To become the first Giant to 15 home runs this year, he demolished a changeup 431 feet to the center field rock formation.
Davis’ third homer in the past two weeks left his bat at 110.4 mph. He jumped all over a pitch that entered the strike zone right down the middle, just like the Giants coaching staff encourages its batters to do. If the team can do more damage on those mistake pitches, their lineup should turn around — even if just moderately.
More poor defense in the seventh gave the Halos the lead right back in the seventh. Pollock tripped while tracking a line drive over his head, turning a double into a triple against Tyler Rogers.
Although Pollock’s sprint speed ranks in the 89th percentile and he’s been a strong defender for most of his 12-year career, that play was uninspiring.
A one-run lead for the Angels is anything but ironclad these days, though.
Finally, the Giants out-hit their mistakes. Even after Joc Pederson’s game-tying home run got robbed by center fielder Mickey Moniak, the Giants had more in their reserves to mount a comeback.
Flores singled off Estévez, the All-Star to lead off the ninth. Davis followed him with a walk, and Bailey scored them both with a go-ahead double down the left field line.
Then Mathias — the throw-in player in the Pollock deal — delivered two more runs with his first hit as a Giant. San Francisco called him up over the weekend with hopes that he could give them more competitive at-bats than Casey Schmitt, and he vindicated their instinct with one swing.
Mathias gave the Giants a 6-3 lead and their fourth run of the ninth inning. For the first time since June 23, they scored more than three runs in a single regulation inning.
It didn’t stop there. LaMonte Wade Jr., Thairo Estrada and Blake Sabol slapped singles off Estévez’s understudy to keep the line moving. The Giants’ biggest frame in over six weeks included five singles, a double, a walk and a sacrifice bunt.
Before Monday, the Giants had played nine straight games decided by two or fewer runs. For much of the night, they looked destined to extend that coin-flip streak to double digits.
But their 30th comeback of the season ended it in quite a welcome way.
