Translation: Very bad, Trevor Mahle. Not good. Real dice-y right from the jump. First inning — uh oh.
Mahle has two cards tucked up his sleeve — a split-finger and four-seam fastball — and in his second start as a Giant, he couldn’t figure out a way to effectively sneak them out of his hand. His go-to splitter didn’t coax the chase he wanted from New York bats early on which led to a prolonged first frame.
Francisco Lindor set the tone with a 6-pitch AB that produced a single. Juan Soto followed with a mirror-image plate appearance, working the count full as Mahle attacked low-and-away until a splitter stayed elevated just enough for Soto to yank another single. Already gassed, desperate for some footing, Mahle floated a lazy, first-pitch split over the middle-of-the-plate, and Bo Bichette punched it right back up the middle for the Mets first run of the game.
Missed locations. All types of contact. The inning would continue kind-a like that. The game would continue kind-a like that too.
What was perhaps most frustrating is that despite the early pressure heaped-on by the Mets offense, off-ramps and exits offered opportunity to follow a different path. An alternate timeline presented itslef. A could’ve beenthat almost was in which Mahle closed out at-bats and avoided that laborious, tone-setting first.
Lindor and Soto both had 2-strikes on them, and Mahle played the cards he wanted to — but neither offering had the edge required to put ‘em away. Another full-count to Luis Robert Jr. and a four-seam fastball missed the bottom of the zone by a seam, costing San Francisco an early ABS challenge while loading the bases. And just when the inning was going belly-up, there was another life-line. A choice splitter from Mahle got a lunge-y swing out of Brett Baty, a come-backer that earned an A-B-C, 1-2-3 double play without sacrificing another run.
A glimmer of light — there was a way out of this bleakness…
And then things went dark again. Mahle reverted to pitch like he was trying to pin the tail on the donkey: eyes closed and arms stretched out in front of him, trying to survive on feel when clearly, there was no feel. Mark Vientos walked on four pitches, and another splitter ended up in the outfield to give the Mets a second run in the frame.
Two runs were scraps after New York had set the table for a feast, but it was enough. An early lead has proven intimidating to this toddling Giants offense, and 33 1st-inning pitches from Mahle was the initial quake whose after-shocks would be felt late on. Marcus Semien took on the center field wall in the 4th to double New York’s lead. Two batters later catcher Francisco Alvarez launched his first of two homers on a dead fish splitter flopped out over the plate.
Meanwhile, New York starter Nolan McClean (who started the WBC final for the USA) retired the first 15 Giants hitters he faced. A human saw mill — like he was frisbeeing circular saws from the mound, the type of movement he produced was that shocking. Though right-handed, his low-arm slot and cross body delivery makes him come off as southpaw. And the difference in induced break he gets from the arm-side run on his sinker compared to the glove-side sweeper feels comparable to the wingspan of a California condor.
While that’s an exaggeration — you know, for effect (a condor’s wings, tip to tip averages around 9 feet) — the point is that the Giants hitters had no idea what was about to come at them and where it was going to go. This showed. McLean cruised through 5 perfect frames, and when he dug himself into 3-ball counts, he climbed himself out of it just as easily, because no matter the supposed count leverage. 3-1 fastball down the middle — Jung Hoo Lee was cast under a spell, perplexed and beholden to the right-and-left turns McLean’s pitches made on their way to the plate.
The only one that could break the spell was McLean himself. He seemed to lose his bearings in the 6th. Harrison Bader and Patrick Bailey figured the best policy was just to stand back, watch, and hope for the best. Their walks gave San Francisco their first base-runners of the day, their first runner in scoring position, and set-up their first run, punched in by a lovely, opposite-field gapper by Willy Adames that skipped over the wall for a ground rule double. First hit knocked McLean from the game, and they’d plate one more on a passed ball by Alvarez. Two runs that at the time felt like massive leaps. Just three runs down, the Giants were back in it…
Until they weren’t. Alvarez made amends for his error for a lead-off homer in the 7th off JT Brubaker. Later, Luis Robert Jr. then singled Bo Bichette home after his double to immediately get back the pair of forfeited runs.
Final: 10 – 3. On to the next one.
