A tale of two teams

The Giants and the Diamondbacks. Also, the Giants and the Giants.

The top and bottom halves of the first inning of Tuesday night’s game were nearly identical. In the top half, Geraldo Perdomo led off for the Arizona Diamondbacks and, facing a young pitcher trying to solidify his role in the Majors (Kyle Harrison), smacked a single. In the bottom half, Mike Yastrzemski led off for the San Francisco Giants and, facing a young pitcher trying to solidify his role in the Majors (Ryne Nelson), drew a walk.

Up next for Arizona was Corbin Carroll, a 2019 draftee who has exceeded all expectations en route to winning Rookie of the Year last season. He doubled to put runners at second and third with no outs.

Up next for San Francisco was Tyler Fitzgerald, a 2019 draftee who has exceeded all expectations en route to putting himself in the Rookie of the Year discussion this season. He doubled to put runners at second and third with no outs.

Stepping into the Diamondbacks’ prime RBI situation was Josh Bell, a power hitter who knew that Harrison would be more than willing to sacrifice a run for an out. Bell chopped a grounder slowly enough to score Perdomo on a fielder’s choice.

Stepping into the Giants’ prime RBI situation was Heliot Ramos, a power hitter who knew that Nelson would be more than willing to sacrifice a run for an out. He roped a liner deep enough to right field to score Yastrzemski on a sacrifice fly.

Arizona’s veteran cleanup hitter, Christian Walker, inherited a one-on, one-out situation with an ultra-speedy runner in scoring position. With eyes wide, he struck out swinging at a challenge 2-2 fastball from Harrison.

San Francisco’s veteran cleanup hitter, Matt Chapman, inherited a one-on, one-out situation with an ultra-speedy runner in scoring position. With eyes wide, he struck out swinging at a challenge 2-2 fastball from Nelson.

Down to their final out of the inning, the Diamondbacks turned to trusty veteran Randal Grichuk, who quickly found himself in a 2-2 count.

Down to their final out of the inning, the Giants turned to trusty veteran LaMonte Wade Jr., who quickly found himself in a 2-2 count.

Then Grichuk smashed a home run to right-center field. And Wade rolled over one weakly to first base.

The Diamondbacks and Giants had read the exact same script for the first 149 pages. And on the 150th, Arizona was treated to a climactic scene in which all of the storylines came together in explosive fashion, while the Giants flipped to a blank piece of paper and looked around, wondering where the rest of the script was.

Somewhere around the time that Bell was hitting his RBI grounder to get the scoring started, Mike Krukow remarked from the broadcast booth that the Diamondbacks had scored 162 more runs than the Giants this year — a figure that would balloon up to 168 a few innings later, before nestling back in at 163 as the teams exited the park.

You score the most runs in baseball (as the Diamondbacks have) by knocking in the runner from third with no outs, which the Giants — Ramos’ delightful situational hitting notwithstanding — have struggled to do all year. But more importantly, you score the most runs in baseball (have I mentioned that the Diamondbacks have done exactly that?) by not settling for just that one run. By treating it less as the carrot dangling on the stick, and more as the cork in the champagne bottle.

The Diamondbacks are a better offensive team. A dramatically better offensive team. You knew that entering this game. You’d have known it even if Wade had homered while Grichuk grounded out meekly. You’d have known it even if the Giants had won.

But because you knew that, you knew that those outcomes were less likely than the opposite outcomes. And indeed, the opposite outcomes were the ones that arrived at 24 Willie Mays Plaza.

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If the first inning felt like a harsh reminder of the difference between the Diamondbacks (78-61 and cruising into the playoffs) and the Giants (68-71 and cruising into a tumultuous offseason), Arizona wasted no time emphasizing it.

They scored again in the second inning, showing off two things the Giants have lacked all year — speed and the ability to throw together a rally at any time — while reminding San Francisco of just how tiny the Giants’ margin for error is. This time the run came courtesy of two singles, a stolen base, and a swipe tag from Patrick Bailey that forgot to include the ball.

That’s not a knock on Bailey, and it’s certainly not a knock on Grant McCray, who unceremoniously was given an error in return for his wondrous throw. It’s just a perfect encapsulation of the season: Bailey missed the ball because he was trying to time the tag perfectly, because the Giants needed perfection in order to have a shot at success. It’s a formula that disappoints more than it surprises.

And in the third inning the D-Backs dealt what felt like a knockout blow — so early! — when they loaded the bases with a two-out rally and forced Harrison out of the game. In came Tristan Beck for his season debut, and two pitches later he’d allowed a two-run single to break the game wide open. The Giants trailed 6-1, and they hadn’t scored six runs in a game in nearly a month. Things were looking grim even without accounting for the massive talent difference between the two teams.

Nelson, meanwhile, was on full cruise control, and even though Beck pitched quite well, Grichuk also found a way to homer off of him, and now the lead was 7-1.

The headline had written itself at this point. The teams had started on identical paths, and when they approached the fork in the road, with a crisp, freshly paved trail to the left and an eroding cliff to the right, they took their divergent routes. It was emblematic of a whole season, a whole roster, a whole approach.

And yet, the headline proved to have a second meaning. Because while I clearly meant it to juxtapose the Giants against the Diamondbacks, it ended up just as cleanly juxtaposing the Giants against themselves.

Suddenly those Giants who hadn’t scored six runs since August 8 reversed course. The team that went 106 consecutive innings without putting up a quartet of runs in a single frame remembered what the laws of baseball allow them to do.

Matt Chapman homered in the sixth inning, providing the second and final run on Nelson’s 6.2-inning ledger. It only made the game 7-2, so you didn’t really think anything of it besides to marvel at how beautiful it was, and to laugh at how it almost hit Sean Hjelle (who needed just 22 pitches to throw two perfect relief innings).

And then the eighth inning occurred. Mike Yastrzemski kicked it off with a leadoff home run, making the score less embarrassing but seemingly still insurmountable. But little did we know that he had put a charge in a team that shockingly had some life hidden in it.

After Fitzgerald struck out, Ramos bopped a one-out single and stole second base. And after Chapman struck out, the D-Backs — despite the four-run lead — pitched around Wade, eventually walking him. Jerar Encarnación made that conservative move look foolish — as did Arizona’s defense — with an RBI single, aided by an error that allowed Wade to take third and Encarnación second.

The Giants had pulled within three runs, yet the super-slumping Bailey stood in the box.

But god, sometimes you just have to sit back and adore what baseball has become.

Not always. Goodness gracious not always. Not when you realize you haven’t seen a pitcher hit in three years. Not when there’s a runner on second base who did nothing to earn that other than be retired the previous inning. Not when you have none chance of guessing the lineup of the team you watch every day without first knowing the handedness of the opposing pitcher.

But when a catcher puts down a two-out bunt, executed to perfection, to score a run? Yeah. Recline the La-Z-Boy, pop the top on an Anchor Steam, and enjoy the hell out of modern day baseball.

Now the Giants were within two, and now the Diamondbacks needed a new pitcher, and now the Giants young prospect who carries all the baggage of confounding organizational treatment on his shoulders was ready to step up to the plate.

And on the very first pitch he saw, Marco Luciano showed the opposite-field approach that is a large part of what makes his skillset so intriguing, flipping one into right field to score a run.

The Giants had scored four runs in an inning. They had erased five-sixths of a six-run deficit. And even though Luis Matos would strike out to end the inning, what few fans had chosen to gather in China Basin were rocking.

But again we’d see the tale of two teams — this time the Giants and Diamondbacks once more — as Arizona was fully nonplussed. Carroll knocked a leadoff single off of Erik Miller to start the ninth, stole second, stole third, and seemingly distracted Miller enough that he threw Walker a hittable pitch, which was put into center field for an insurance run-driving single.

And again we’d see the tale of two teams — back to the Giants and the Giants — when they responded again, this time with Yaz’s leadoff hit being a single, with the veteran right fielder scoring when Ramos roped a one-out double down the left field line, putting the tying run in scoring position.

And again Wade came to bat with a runner on second and two outs, and again the Diamondbacks took a questionable approach, this time issuing an intentional walk, allowing the walk-off run to reach base in pursuit of a right-on-right matchup, knowing the Giants had no left-handed counter in the wings.

And this time Encarnación could not find the clutch hit. This time he would strike out swinging, and while the score and the arc and the excitement were all dramatically different than you thought they’d be some eight innings prior, the end result was exactly what you expected, and exactly what you’ve become accustomed to.

A loss.