The slumping San Francisco Giants retooled their outfield before Wednesday’s game, sending Harrison Bader and Jared Oliva to the injured list and recalling Drew Gilbert and Will Brennan from Sacramento. Unfortunately, they didn’t retool the way they pitch to Cincinnati Reds rookie Sal Stewart.
Stewart gave the Reds a 3-0 lead with a three-run home run in the first inning off Giants starter Tyler Mahle (0-3) then extended the lead to 7-0 with a second three-run bomb one inning later. The rookie now has 12 homers and 25 RBIs in his 36-game big-league career and those numbers have gone way up in this series.
Mahle missed his spot badly on the second one, leaving his fastball up for Stewart to hit an opposite-field dinger for the third time this series.
The Giants starter never had a chance and it honestly should have been worse. Eugenio Suarez went deep three pitches after Stewart’s first homer for the 328th home run of his career, tying Shawn Green and Scores Hall of Famer Mo Vaughn. In the second, he walked the first batter on four pitches and was bailed out when TJ Friedl bunted Ke’Bryan Hayes over — only for Mahle to pick him off second.
Mahle followed that up by walking Matt McLain and Elly De La Cruz before Stewart’s three-run blast. For the inning, he gave up three walks, two hits and a homer, retiring exactly one hitter who wasn’t making an out on purpose.
Manager Tony Vitello treated Mahle like he’d been caught smoking and his punishment was to smoke the whole pack. There was no action in the Giants bullpen in the second or third inning, with Mahle left to eat innings and think about what he did on the mound where he spent the first six seasons of his career. That’s why he was still in to give up a fourth-inning bomb to De La Cruz that rivaled the flight of the space shuttle Artemis.
De La Cruz’s home run trot took only slightly less time than the entire Artemis mission.
The Giants did match their highest scoring output of their losing streak with three runs, and even got to two runs by the second inning! Matt Chapman singled, Jung Hoo Lee walked and Silver Slugger candidate Daniel Susac knocked in both runners with a double down the left field line.
The offense remains a work in progress. After Susac’s double, Reds starter Rhett Lowder (2-1) retired the next 12 Giants he faced. When Luis Arraez singled to break the streak, Lowder got new No. 3 hitter Casey Schmidt to ground into an inning-ending double play. New outfielders Brennan and Ramos went 0-for-2.
Rafael Devers’ frustration mirrored that of the team and the fanbase after he swung through a Lowder slider to lead off the second inning, snapping his bat in half.
He would get a measure of revenge in the 7th, hitting a single off Lowder before Chapman and Lee lined out. Susac followed with another hit, then Heliot Ramos got a much-needed RBI single, pinch-hitting against left-handed reliever Brock Burke, who has two last names. Jerar Encarnacion loaded the bases with a pinch-hit single of his own, but the inning ended with a Willy Adames strikeout.
In the 8th inning, the team got unlucky. After Arraez walked and Devers beat out an infield hit (4.6 seconds home to first!), Matt Chapman fouled off four pitches before hitting a scorcher straight at third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes (son of Charlie!). Hayes doubled Arraez off second as the Giants’ last chance ended.
Encarnacion kept the good feelings going by turning a fly ball he couldn’t reach into a force out at second in the 8th. Ramos did not keep the good vibes going when he struck out in the ninth on a pitch that landed in the left-handed batter’s box.
Apropos of nothing, Bryce Eldridge is slashing 360/.492/.520 for the Sacramento River Cats, with 10 walks and 19 strikeouts in 63 plate appearances, hitting a three-run homer of his own in the first inning Wednesday night. And as we all know, the river cat is a mythical creature that lives in the American River. If you catch it, it will grant you a wish or bribe a State Senator.
The bullpen mopped up well, with Blade Tidwell and Ryan Borucki pitching perfect innings and JT Brubaker logging two scoreless innings, while also getting into a shouting match with Spencer Steer over…pitching too slow? Hard to say. It was late and both teams were cranky.
Thursday is a day game, where Landon Roupp tries to halt the Giants’ five-game slide against Chase Burns, who judging by his name, leads a group of rich campers in tormenting the nerdier campers across the lake. One tip for Roupp? Don’t give up home runs, which have been the Reds’ entire offense for two games, albeit an extremely effective form of offense.
Also he orders chili in Cincinnati, they’re going to pour it over spaghetti. Yes, there are some things more baffling than the Giants’ inability to score runs.
