What we learned as Jordan Hicks roughed up early in Giants' loss to Phillies originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
PHILADELPHIA — You have to go back to last August to find the last time the Philadelphia Phillies lost a series at home, so a split for the Giants wasn’t a bad result at all. But it sure wasn’t a comfortable four days at Citizens Bank Park.
The Giants lost 6-4 in the finale with the Phillies, and for a second straight game, and third time in this series, it seemed early on that the game might end with a position player on the mound.
Jordan Hicks took the mound with a 1-0 lead and immediately gave five back, but he held it there, and the Giants chipped away with a two-run homer from Matt Chapman in the sixth. That was their only big swing against lefty Cristopher Sanchez, who struck out a career-high 12.
The Giants brought the tying run to the plate in the ninth after Tyler Fitzgerald homered and Jung Hoo Lee got a pinch-hit infield single, but rookie Christian Koss bounced out to short.
The Phillies have the best home record in baseball over the past calendar year and entered the series with eight wins and one tie in their last nine series at Citizens Bank Park. With a chance to end that streak, the Giants dug too big a hole.
Here are three things to know from the final game of a wild back-and-forth series …
Uncomfortable In The Dugout
On Monday and Wednesday, Bob Melvin was forced to get the bullpen going in the first inning before his starting pitcher got out of a jam. When Hicks allowed the first five Phillies to reach in the bottom of the first, there was no movement in the pen. The Giants really had no choice but to let Hicks try to get out of the inning and get deep.
Spencer Bivens and Lou Trivino pitched two innings each on Wednesday and Hayden Birdsong appeared on Sunday and Tuesday. When Hicks became the latest Giants starter to run into trouble right away, he had to wear it.
Hicks ended up allowing five runs in the inning on five hits and a walk. He threw 33 pitches a few hours after Robbie Ray needed 39 in his first inning. Melvin talked before Wednesday’s game about how often he has had to think about moves early in games recently, and it’s hard to imagine a worse series than this one in terms of getting off to quick starts.
None of the four Giants starters had a clean first inning and only Justin Verlander threw a scoreless first. The starters combined to allow 10 runs on 10 hits and eight walks in the four first innings at Citizens Bank Park. They all escaped true disaster, but Melvin can’t be happy with how often he has to contemplate pulling a starter early.
The Adventure
Here are some of the things that happened during Hicks’ fourth start of the year: Gave up five runs in the first … responded by throwing six shutout innings … threw a career-high 105 pitches … averaged 99 mph with his sinker … hit triple digits 16 times, topping out at 101.7 mph … drilled Trea Turner with a 101 mph fastball and then had words with the Phillies bench the rest of the game … got yelled at by home plate umpire Phil Cuzzi after the bottom of the seventh.
It was a wild one.
Hicks showed an absurd ability to hold his fastball velocity over 100 pitches, doing something only a handful of pitchers in the world can do. But those five runs count, and he has a 6.04 ERA through four starts.
Happy Chappy
Chapman has been drawing walks all year, but he came into this series with seven straight games without a hit. He got one in each of the four games, and with the homer on Thursday, his OPS is up to .804, which would be his highest in five years.
Chapman contributed subtly on Thursday, too. He made multiple visits to the mound to calm Hicks. The Giants couldn’t afford to have their starter get knocked out in the first, but they also couldn’t afford to have him get ejected in the middle of the game.
