A tied game turned into a home run blowout in the tenth inning, with the Giants falling just short of coming back, despite an excellent start from Jordan Hicks.
Despite a late-inning comeback attempt, the San Francisco Giants lost to the Pittsburgh Pirates tonight 4-3 in ten innings.
Jordan Hicks was the player of the game, pitching into the seventh inning with one run (that he didn’t cash in) on five hits with a career-high nine strikeouts.
When he exited in the seventh, he had allowed a single to Connor Joe. Luke Jackson came in in relief after that, and had a nine-pitch battle with Jack Suwinski, who hit a ground ball to Nick Ahmed, who was covering second, that unfortunately hit him in the hand/wrist and caused him to not be able to make a play, and both runners reached safely. Joey Bart hit into a force-out that got Suwinski, before Jared Triolo walked to load the bases. All it took was a sac fly from Rowdy Tellez to get the Pirates on the board and cash in on Hicks’ only run allowed.
Nothing quite exemplifies the duality of baseball like Wilmer Flores in the sixth inning of this game. In the top of the sixth, Flores had two fielding errors that resulted in Alika Williams staying alive in his at-bat, only to go on and single. Then again with Bryan Reynolds, who reached on the second fielding error.
In the bottom of the inning, it seemed like Flores was getting his redemption arc, as he knocked in the Giants first run of the game on a double, after Nick Ahmed reached on a fielding error by Williams. Unfortunately, Flores tried to take third on a wild pitch and was initially called safe, but after a successful challenge by the Pirates, it was overturned and the Giants wouldn’t be able to get any more out of the inning.
It was a tied-game grind after that. Tyler Rogers impressed in the eighth. Reynolds and Ke’Bryan Hayes both singled with one out, with Hayes splitting the outfield defense, resulting in three outfielders being within a foot of the ball when it landed. But Rogers managed to get Joe and Suwinski to ground out to get out of the jam.
Camilo Doval entered for the ninth and pitched a clean inning with a strikeout, but the Giants weren’t able to do anything in the bottom of the inning, so the game went to extras.
And that is where things went off the rails for the Giants.
I get a little biased with regards to relievers. Sometimes it’s warranted, sometimes it’s based on subjective memories. But I can’t help but get a bit of anxiety in the pit of my stomach when Taylor Rogers enters a game. And tonight was no exception. The inning started with Williams as the runner on second and Andrew McCutchen leading off. McCutchen flied out to Michael Conforto, who made a heck of a play to catch it.
Unfortunately, after that Reynolds hit a first pitch home run that knocked in Williams. And Hayes followed that up with a home run of his own, and the Pirates took a 4-1 lead.
To their credit, though, the Giants did not go out without a fight. Patrick Bailey started the bottom of the inning on second, and then Jorge Soler entered the chat with a massive home run to the upper section of the left center field bleachers. Just a behemoth of a homer.
Soler just launched this ball into outer space pic.twitter.com/2TXKAAGMSY
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) April 28, 2024
Thairo Estrada followed that up with a dribbler up the third base line, which brought in LaMonte Wade, Jr. as a pinch-hitter for Ahmed. And the ballpark couldn’t have been more electric, hoping for a Late Night LaMonte appearance. Unfortunately, both Wade and then Mike Yastrzemksi (entering as a pinch-hitter for Austin Slater) both struck out to end the game.
And while it’s obviously not how you want the game to end, getting those two runs back in the bottom of the 10th and showing signs of life went a long way to redeem this game. Even if I still think Jordan Hicks deserved better.