Shaun Anderson. Noah K. Murray-USA TODAY Sports
The Giants played good baseball Thursday, which was sandwiched by dreadful baseball.
They started poorly and finished poorly, wasting a bounce-back Shaun Anderson effort in a 7-3 loss to the Mets at Citi Field, as the Giants finished their road trip on a down note.
It was a bullpen that entered the day with the fifth-best ERA in the majors (3.70) that sunk the Giants, who let up five runs in the seventh and eighth to turn a 3-2 lead into a letdown loss that turned both this series and trip away from Oracle Park (4-5) into losing ones.
Mark Melancon was the main culprit, allowing a two-run Todd Frazier blast in the eighth inning that put the Giants behind, 5-3, before the Mets widened the gap.
An inning earlier, a bloop Jeff McNeil single off Reyes Moronta had tied the game, ruining what had been a promising Anderson effort.
In six-plus innings, Anderson allowed three runs on six hits and three walks with three strikeouts, rebounding solidly after an inauspicious beginning. It was the second straight solid start for Anderson, who had gone seven innings against the Orioles on Saturday, allowing just two runs, and the 24-year-old rookie has now given back-to-back hopeful peeks at a promising future for a team that needs one.
The 2016 third-round pick does not have the stuff that his opponent has – former Giants farmhand Zack Wheeler, whose 99-mph fastball oftentimes baffled San Francisco bats – or even the filth that Wednesday’s Giants starter, Tyler Beede, possesses. But a sinking fastball got him key ground balls when he needed them.
Anderson’s fourth and eighth pitches of the game went for home runs, to Amed Rosario and Dominic Smith, respectively, followed by a Pete Alonso walk and Michael Conforto hard-hit single.
But Anderson settled down, allowing just three singles – two bunted – the rest of the way. He got some help from New York native Joe Panik, who made a pair of nifty plays against Tomas Nido, his first robbing a second-inning hit with a stab of a liner, his second beginning an inning-ending double play to end the fourth. He got more help from Pablo Sandoval, who golfed the eighth pitch of his sixth-inning at-bat 438 feet to right field, his eighth homer of the year, giving the Giants their first lead at 3-2.
Anderson was pulled after 82 pitches upon a leadoff walk to Juan Lagares in the seventh, a Bruce Bochy decision with which Anderson did not appear thrilled — and which did not work out.
After Anderson was pulled, Nido had an infield single, and Carlos Gomez sacrificed the runners over. McNeil, a pinch-hitter, blooped one to left just out of the reach of a scrambling Brandon Crawford to tie the game at 3-3. Tony Watson then entered and got the ground ball the Giants needed for a double play to put out the fire — for the moment at least.