David Kohl | USA TODAY Sports
Giants fans will want to quickly forget Friday’s game. After failing to mount any significant offense, they lost 2-1 to the bottom-feeding Cincinnati Reds on an 11th-inning walk-off.
In the 11th inning, Ray Black re-entered the game for the Giants after striking out the side in the 10th. On his first batter he saw in the 11th, Black allowed a walk-off home run to Phillip Ervin.
The Giants only run came in the third inning, from a single by Andrew McCutchen, who had three singles in the game. But the offense stagnated after the third and failed to add another run.
Giants starter Casey Kelly started his first game since 2016, when he was with the Atlanta Braves. Also in attendance was his father, Pat, who is the Reds’ bench coach. Kelly was making the start in place of Dereck Rodriguez, who headed to the 10-day disabled list yesterday after sustaining a groin strain in Tuesday’s Giants-Dodgers brawl.
Kelly allowed just one run, but was hit hard and consistently by the Reds in 4 1/3 innings of work. He gave up a hit in every inning he pitched and nine in total, yet he managed to strand six baserunners before being relieved by Reyes Moronta in the fifth.
On the Reds’ side was a dominant performance by Anthony DeSclafani, who pitched 7 2/3 innings of one-run baseball, allowing just six hits. DeSclafani found himself unlucky to not complete the eighth, after he struck out Alen Hanson for a would-be third out, but it rolled to the backstop, allowing Hanson to reach first and McCutchen to reach third. After he was pulled, reliever Jared Hughes came in to force a groundout to Buster Posey and end the inning unscathed.
Hughes’s successful third of an inning was followed by tremendous relief pitching by Raisel Iglesias, who shut the Giants out in two straight innings, and David Hernandez, who shut them out in the 11th.
The loss drops the Giants (61-62) back below. 500.