The San Francisco Giants’ 7-2 victory over the Atlanta Braves on Wednesday was a story of two games. No, literally. A story of two games, played on two days. Two games that the Giants won, resulting in — stay with me — one game that the Giants won.
It began on Tuesday night when, against the the judgement of nearly everyone at the park, the game was started despite pouring rain in Atlanta. The rain seemed to benefit the hitters on each side, as they jumped on pitches that were lacking in their usual spin. Luis Arráez led off the game with a double, and moved to third when Bryce Eldridge singled. After an unproductive out by Matt Chapman, Rafael Devers loaded the bases with a walk, before a Jung Hoo Lee sacrifice fly put the first run on the board. In all, Grant Holmes threw 28 pitches in the first inning, and looked entirely uncomfortable in the storm, though his long, soaked hair looked fairly majestic.
In the bottom half of the inning, it became abundantly clear that the struggles in the top half had been due to the weather, as Adrian Houser immediately suffered the same fate. The first batter he faced, Drake Baldwin, absolutely annihilated the baseball, hitting one of the longest home runs in the Majors this year (473 feet!!!), despite it being his first at-bat in roughly a month.
A single, a walk (by former Giant Dominic Smith), and another single (by former Giant Mauricio Dubón) later, and Atlanta had not just equalized, but taken a 2-1 lead. Houser, like Holmes, had thrown 28 pitches in the first inning, and looked equally uncomfortable in the downpour.
Yet the game continued into the second inning, where the wetness continued to favor the hitters. Casey Schmitt led off with a single, and Drew Gilbert followed with a walk. Following an atrocious at-bat by Daniel Susac (a three-pitch strikeout that featured two failed bunts, and a whiff at a pitch in a different area code), Arráez loaded the bases with a Sandovalian golfed single. In one of the best at-bats of the season, Eldridge tied the game by working a walk, which featured a tremendous ABS challenge. Chapman, having failed in his prior attempt, exacted revenge this time around, successfully achieving a sacrifice fly (though sacrifice liner is a more accurate term, with Dubón making a brilliant catch in center to rob Chapman of a hit).
With that, the Giants not only led, but won the first game 3-2.
That was all the baseball that would be played, though we didn’t know it for a while. The rain had stopped, and the game had not entered a delay, but the baseball was over. The grounds crew took the field in an attempt to restore the soaked infield, and they stayed there for a good 45 minutes. At no point did the game ever officially enter a rain delay, to the confusion of the fans at Truist Park and the ire of the broadcasters and reporters in attendance. Finally, roughly an hour and a half after play had been paused (but not delayed!), it was announced that the game had been postponed, and would resume on Wednesday before the scheduled game.
In doing so, a gift was handed to Robbie Ray, a player in dire need of some help. Because the game was postponed after it began, the lineups were already set … which means Atlanta’s lineup was full of left-handed hitters to combat Houser. Ray, who doesn’t get to face left-handed hitters all that often, found the tonic he was searching for in Atlanta’s arrangement.
He struck out his former teammate Mike Yastrzemski to begin the second half of the first game, and then struck out Ha-Seong Kim, en route to a three-up, three-down first/second inning. He handled the third easily, giving up just a walk. In the fourth, he set down the side in order on just 12 pitches, finishing things off with another strikeout of Yastrzemski. He opened the fifth with back-to-back strikeouts, before issuing a walk that he easily worked around. Only eight pitches were required for a dominant sixth.
Ray was cruising, and he was cruising for the first time in a while. It was a delight to see. He resembled the Ray of early last year, who was both dominant and unfazed. In the seventh, he gave up a leadoff double, but looked completely unbothered, never letting the runner reach third while striking out Yastrzemski for a third time, and also the ever-dangerous Baldwin.
After opening the eighth with an out, Ray ceded a single to Matt Olson. With 94 pitches thrown, Tony Vitello deemed that a good enough effort for Ray, who left the mound having thrown 6.1 scoreless frames, while allowing just four baserunners and striking out eight.
It was a performance worth admiring, even if such performances are a little bittersweet right now. Ray finding his form doesn’t really help the Giants this year, given the hole they’ve dug; right now his success correlates mostly with the return the Giants will get when they presumably trade him next month.
So until then: enjoy the strikeouts, and enjoy the grunts.
While San Francisco opted to move up their scheduled Wednesday starter (Carson Whisenhunt has been recalled from AAA Sacramento to pitch the evening game), Atlanta chose to keep their rotation in order, and handle Wednesday’s resumption with a bullpen game.
For a while, it worked. James Karinchak handled the third inning, and set down the Giants in order. Dylan Dodd came on for the fourth, and did the same. With a pair of lefties due up in the fifth, the southpaw Dodd was given a second inning, and that’s where the Braves’ plan went awry. He retired Eldridge and Chapman easily, but Devers had different plans. Despite generally struggling against lefties this year, Devers jumped on a 1-1 sinker at the top of the zone, and comfortably cleared the fence with it.
What came next was even more surprising: on the very next pitch (a nearly identical pitch, I might add), Lee followed Devers and did the exact same thing.
It was a stunning sequence of events, and the context from the broadcast only made it more stunning: it was the first time since Barry Bonds and A.J. Pierzynski, a whole 22 years ago, that a pair of Giants lefties had gone back-to-back off of a left-hander. What a beautiful thing.
The Giants continued to rely on the long ball, getting their next run in the eighth inning, when Willy Adames took Anthony Molina deep for an awe-inspiring 424-foot solo bomb. By the time the ninth inning rolled around, not only did the Giants have a cozy lead, but they had scored all of their resumption runs on homers.
That would finally change in the ninth with a rally befitting the start of the game on Tuesday: Arráez and Eldridge hit back-to-back singles, with the former scoring on a Chapman ground ball, locking in the final score at 7-2.
Meanwhile, the bullpen held strong enough. Dylan Smith took over when Ray departed with one on and one out in the eighth, and quickly got out of the inning, though he did give up a single. Smith stayed in for the ninth and impressively struck out Riley, as he looked to be cooking.
It came to a screeching halt after that, though, when he gave up a single to Yastrzemski, before issuing a four-pitch walk to Kim, who currently boasts an .089 batting average. Even with the five-run cushion, and even with another nine innings to cover in a few hours, Vitello decided to take no chances, and brought in his recently-appointed closer, Caleb Kilian.
I’ve had my quips with Vitello opting to name Kilian the closer, but one of my favorite things is when the Giants make me look dumb. And Kilian made me look dumb. With two on and the top of the lineup stepping up, Kilian pounded the strike zone with a flurry of unhittable pitches, striking out Baldwin and Eli White to end the game.
It might have taken a few days, but the Giants won, and even managed to look great doing it.
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