© Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports
SAN FRANCISCO – Saturday’s contest was an offensive explosion by the Giants standards. Sunday, their bats froze over once again, dropping the rubber match of the series to the Tampa Bay Rays.
Giants starter Drew Pomeranz set an all too familiar tone in the first inning. The Rays’ leadoff hitter Yandy Diaz led off the game with a solo home run, which gave them their sixth first-inning run of the series.
The top of the Rays lineup continued to be a thorn in the side of Pomeranz. Surrendering walks to Diaz and Tommy Pham, Pomeranz would end up working out of a third-inning jam, but not before throwing sixty-eight pitches through three.
Pomeranz once again found himself in a similar situation in the top of the fourth. After walking the leadoff hitter Kevin Kiermaier, Willy Adames would reach on an infield single that would put runners on first and second with nobody out. Former Giants top-prospect Christian Arroyo tacked on another run with an RBI single to right, scoring Kiermaier.
Pomeranz exited in the top of the fifth after allowing a leadoff single to Daniel Robertson, having thrown 94 pitches through four-plus innings. Bruce Bochy would deploy his bullpen, which happens to have the lowest ERA in the National League, for the remaining five innings.
(Via ESPN.com)
Twenty-six-year-old Trevor Gott would replace Pomeranz with two shutout innings, striking out three. Gott, along with rookie reliever Travis Bergen, have so far been effective additions to an already dominant Giants bullpen.
Offensively, the Giants were outmatched from the beginning. Collecting just two hits through six innings, the hits would begin to fall in the seventh. Yangervis Solarte came in to replace Joe Panik at second base and led off the bottom of the seventh with a base hit. Three batters later, Brandon Crawford lined a single up the middle to put runners on first and second. Kevin Pillar would follow with an inning-ending strikeout to put an end to the rally.
During that bottom of the seventh, the Rays continued to think outside the box with their pitching. Reliever Adam Kolarek started the inning, gave up a single to Solarte, and then was moved to first base in a pitching change that brought in another reliever, Chaz Roe. Kolarek was then moved back to pitcher, from first base, to face Brandon Belt, Crawford and Pillar to close out the inning. The Rays keeping a reliever in the game and putting him at another position temporarily is something that even the Giants did back in 2016 with Cory Gearrin.
Nick Vincent would come on in the eighth inning and allow the Rays to tack on another run in quite a bizarre way. With one out, Kiermaier tripled into the right-center. Vincent then balked in a run on a pickoff throw to third that caught Evan Longoria by surprise.
The remainder of the game would conclude quietly after the Giants put together a late rally in the ninth. Solarte would single, and Belt would walk, bringing Brandon Crawford to the plate as the tying run before grounding out to end the game. The Giants went down without much of a fight to cap off another poor performance with the bats. With the loss 3-0 to the Rays, the Giants dropped their first home series of the year.
The team will continue its homestand with the up-and-coming San Diego Padres tomorrow night, sending Madison Bumgarner to the mound against Padres lefty Eric Lauer.