The San Francisco Giants have dealt with a chicken-egg scenario in some games this season.
Their pitching will be serviceable, but not great, allowing a couple of runs, but still posting close to a quality start. And their offense will provide little, if any, run support to back up the pitching performance, especially early. If both hold true for the remainder of the game, they lose.
Wednesday’s affair with the Philadelphia Phillies was another one of these games early, as the Giants gave up a couple runs and could not answer with any of their own. But the collective dam still keeping them in the game broke spectacularly late, as a six-run sixth inning meltdown led to the Giants’ second blowout loss of the series, this time by a score of 11-3.
Miscues doomed the Giants in the first inning, as two errors led to two runs. Chris Stratton threw the ball away on a pickoff attempt, allowing Odubel Herrera to advance to second. Herrera then scored an a double by Carlos Santana. The slow-running Santana then advanced to third on a wild pitch from Stratton, who followed the wild pitch up by allowing an RBI single to Maikel Franco.
Franco added on in the fourth with a deep solo shot to left-center, and Santana added a two-run single in the fifth, scoring Andrew Knapp and Aaron Altherr, both of whom had reached on walks. But the floodgates really opened in the sixth, as the Phillies kept the line moving with three walks, four singles, a double, and a sacrifice fly. The knockout blow was another two-run single from Santana, which widened the deficit to 11-1.
The Giants’ offense was anemic once again, posting more strikeouts (11) than hits (9). Their first run of the game scored on an Evan Longoria RBI double in the sixth, and they capped the scoring in the ninth with two runs on a Kelby Tomlinson walk and an Alen Hanson sacrifice fly.
Stratton had a sloppy start, allowing four walks, five hits and five runs in 4.2 innings of work and throwing 96 pitches despite his low inning count. Meanwhile, Phillies starter Nick Pivetta kept Giants hitters off-balance in his five innings pitched, utilizing a dominant power sinker along with a slider and curveball.
The series concludes Thursday morning. In an unusual twist, viewers will only be able to watch the game on Facebook Watch, as it has been selected as the social media platform’s MLB game of the week. However, you can still listen to the game on KNBR 680 and all of our affiliate stations. The early morning game has an expected start time of 10:05 a.m. PT. Ty Blach (3-3, 3.60 ERA) will try to help the Giants avoid getting swept, while Vince Velasquez (2-4, 5.14 ERA) will do his best to make sure the Giants leave Philadelphia without a win.