Ty Blach

This offseason, the San Francisco Giants signed closer Mark Melancon to a four-year, $62 million deal that was among the richest contracts ever signed by a Major League reliever. When the Giants start the second half of the season on Friday in San Diego, Melancon won’t even be the highest-paid member of San Francisco’s bullpen.

Last offseason, the San Francisco Giants set out to make the ninth inning boring. Over the past decade, Giants’ closers like Brian Wilson, Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla all enjoyed various stretches of dominance in their role, but for the most part, late-inning situations have been an adventure for San Francisco.

There was a growing sense entering his start on Wednesday evening that Ty Blach could be pitching to keep his spot in the San Francisco Giants’ rotation. If that’s the case, Blach put a lock on his spot, and then did his best to hide the key.

Ty Blach was headed for another one of those days. Before half the fans had a chance to reach their seats at AT&T Park on Wednesday afternoon, the Giants’ lefty had already surrendered a pair of runs and committed a costly throwing error.

Jae-gyun Hwang has spent the better part of his life dreaming about the day he’d make his Major League debut. But for all the times Hwang thought about what the experience would be like, he never pictured himself hitting a home run.

The bat didn’t go soaring, but the ball sure did. So did the Giants’ spirits, which were lifted in a memorable way Wednesday as third baseman Jae-Gyun Hwang launched his first career home run in his Major League debut.

The Giants’ 2017 season has been borderline unwatchable. But for a team that’s been as dull as a PBS fundraising telethon, Ty Blach’s starts have come complete with the drama of a daytime soap opera. Sure, Blach isn’t ready for primetime just yet, but when he’s on the mound, it’s harder to pick up the remote.

Despite a strong start to his first full-length season in the majors, Ty Blach has been struggling as of late. Blach gave up a combined 15 runs across his last three starts and Friday night did not help buck that trend.

After playing past midnight in Atlanta on Thursday night (well, Friday morning), Bruce Bochy’s ballclub endured a five-hour cross country flight back to San Francisco and didn’t land until the sun was rising. So when San Francisco fell behind 7-1 on Friday evening against the New York Mets, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that the team looked as if it was sleepwalking. For as well as ballplayers have it, that travel schedule is brutal.

It’s the middle of June, and already, the Giants don’t have much to play for. Less than halfway through the season, rare is the day when Giants players can wake up in the morning and head to the park with a sense of urgency, as the chance to play “must-win” ballgames will elude them in 2017.