Sometimes there isn’t much more to it than the fact that the Padres are a good baseball team, and the Giants are not.
The San Francisco Giants got shut out for their third home game in a row tonight, losing to the San Diego Padres 8-0.
Honestly, I don’t know what you want to hear about that game. I don’t want to hear about that game and I’m the one writing this.
But to liven things up a bit, let me channel Stefan from Saturday Night Live: “This game had everything!” It just happened to be everything you don’t want.
There was no offense. The pitching left a lot to be desired. There was juvenile defense. There were batters getting hit by pitches. There were lost challenges. There were five innings where the Giants went down in order. When they didn’t go down in order, there were batters hitting into double plays and force outs that wiped out any hope of a run scoring.
To put it plainly, the Giants were out-played by a much better team. At the same time, and to put it meanly, the Giants were unwatchably bad. That is not a good combination of things to happen at the same time.
The Padres scored eight runs on 15 hits and four walks. The Giants didn’t manage a single walk and were damn lucky to even scrape together a full handful of hits, with two of them coming in the ninth inning.
So in honor of that effort, I suppose I can scrape together a few highlights from this game.
The first would be Mason Black, who allowed two runs on six hits with two strikeouts and a walk in four innings. Not a bad start by any measure.
Second would be infielder Donovan Walton, who made his major league pitching debut in the ninth inning, allowing two hits but getting through the inning without allowing a run. This is quite the accomplishment, considering the actual relievers in this game struggled to do the same. (Except for Erik Miller. You’re fine, Erik Miller.)
Also Grant McCray, who was one-for-one after coming in as a defensive substitute for Matt Chapman in the ninth. He was, of course, immediately out afterwards when Walton hit into a force out. But the effort is still appreciated, dang it.
Now, if you want the lowlights of this game…well, you can look at the box score. No one deserves to have to read the post-mortem minutia of a loss like this on a Saturday night. The Padres hit the ball, the Giants did not. The Padres pitched well, the Giants did not.
The Padres are a good baseball team, the Giants are not.