An early lead lost, a shaky outing from Ray — all smoothed over by offensive outburst
Robbie Ray is a regifter.
The San Francisco Giants offense wrapped up and gifted him four perfectly good runs before he even touched a baseball Wednesday evening. Four hits, a bases-loaded walk — the bats put a diminished Philadelphia starter Aaron Nola to work in the top of the 1st.
Willy Adames broke a career long 0-for-16 against Nola with a one-out double, and a single from Jung Hoo Lee knocked him in. One run was nearly all they got after Nola froze LaMonte Wade Jr. with the bases loaded. But the MLB leader in RBIs, Wilmer Flores, padded his stats by spitting on a low sinker for a run-scoring walk. Then Patrick Bailey made it a big frame on a 2-run single.
And what did Ray do with that considerate cushion, that neatly wrapped early lead?
I mean, if you’ve seen him pitch at all, you can guess. Imagine Christmas morning in the Ray household. Robbie was that kid, up at the crack of dawn, violently shaking each present, to see if he could glean clues on what is inside — sure — but also just to test the packaging.
He basically pitches the same way. His often brief outings consist of harsh jostles of the game’s contents. He is constantly seeking stimulation on the mound, constantly pushing the limits. What will get called a strike? What will the batter swing at? So desperate is he to be in control that he will give up all semblance of control. Watching him pitch I wonder if the worst thing in the world to him is one of his pitches being put a ball in play.
So yeah, given a gift, Ray shook the hell out of it. He ripped it open and threw it around the room. He started ripping it up and sharing it with the Phillies. Gifts are meant to be returned, right?
Trea Turner legged out an infield single to lead-off the bottom of the 1st, and proceeded to amble around the bases. Ray, less as a pitcher and more of a crossing guard, directing the pedestrian flow on the bases. He walked Bryce Harper on four pitches. He spiked a slider for a wild pitch as he careened towards another base-on-balls to Kyle Scwarber. And just like that, one choice swing could tie it for the Phils. Ray appeared hellbent on keeping that from happening. Best to just not let them hit it at all, he figured, then ping-ponged between K and BB.
J.T. Realmuto took a 3-2 fastball for an RBI walk. Alec Bohm swung through an elevated 3-2 slider. Edmundo Sosa kept his bat on the shoulder and walked in another run on five pitches. An inside slider fanned catcher Rafael Marchán with the bases loaded to end the inning. Two runs on four walks, only two balls were put in play and neither of them traveled 100 feet. The inning over, Ray grumbled off the mound with, not the lead, but a lead still miraculously intact.
Aaron Nola, cooked after 35 pitches, regained his strength as Ray sweated through 39. Momentum swinging back in his favor, Nola rode that second wind. The veteran righty faced 9 batters in the 1st inning, then faced just ten through the next three frames. Though his velocity might be down this year and had been unceremoniously knocked about in his first three starts and the start of this start, Nola still knows how to pitch. While Ray is all crash bang boom on the cymbals, Nola rides the hi-hat and snare. Everything is more subdued, more down. His sinker and knuckle-curve caused Giants fits at the bottom of the zone.
Based on the groove Nola was in and Ray’s erratic presence, it was only a matter of time before Philly would close the 2-run gap.
Bryce Harper did it on his first swing of the game. He watched eight pitches go by in his first two plate appearances. All balls from Ray, all easy takes. Apparently, by his third trip to the plate, he was tired of waiting for something in the zone. So a lazy inside slider in the vicinity of the home…close enough for Harper to spin it into the right-field seats.
New ballgame in the 4th. And at that point, a ballgame that felt decidedly out of the Giants’ control and nestled in the furry green hands of the Philly Phanatic.
But with that initial four-run lead officially squandered, the San Francisco bats kicked it back into gear, plating 7 unanswered runs over the next five innings.
Jung Hoo Lee’s one-out double (his 10th) in the 5th set-up the Giants first at-bat with a runner in scoring position since the 1st. Chapman immediately singled, and a horrendous throw from center fielder Johan Rojas that ended up in the visiting dugout allowed Lee to score. They’d load the bases in the 6th, and score on another walk by Willy Adames and a sacrifice fly by Lee — San Francisco’s first since March 31st.
So perhaps there’s some good that comes from Ray’s frequent hand-outs. What you put out in the world, you often get back in some way. Generosity swings. Ray walked 5 over four innings, then Philadelphia arms handed out 6 over the last five innings. On Chapman’s single, Lee had held up at third until Rojas decided to huck the baseball out-of-bounds.
An 11-4 victory on a cold, windy night in a tough ballpark against a tough team. While the starting pitching left us wanting, every other aspect of play gave in abundance. In relief, Lou Trivino put up two scoreless innings to protect San Francisco’s second lead in those middle innings, while Camilo Doval and Spencer Bivens didn’t allow a hit through the final three frames.
Other than a little bit of a weird day defensively from Patrick Bailey, we got to see Tyler Fitzgerald catch a fly ball…backwards? Upside down?
And then, of course, the offense, from top to bottom of the order, excelled. They went 6-for-16 with runners in scoring position (Philly went 1-for-9). Everyone in the line-up reached base at least once. Four players had multi-hit games and six different players knocked in a run.
Mike Yastrzemski in the leadoff spot reached base four times, going 2-for-4 with 2 BB and 2 RBI. Lee scored twice and knocked in two runs on a 2-for-5 night. Fitzgerald went 3-for-5 with two singles and a double for his second 3-hit game of the series.