Tyler Beede. Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports
While Tyler Beede couldn’t quite break through, the Giants’ bats did.
The Giants rookie pitcher whiffed on his elusive first career win, but the Giants improved to 27-38 anyway, using a three-run seventh-inning rally that was highlighted by an Evan Longoria two-RBI double to beat the Padres, 6-5, in front of 28,353 at Oracle Park on Tuesday.
Bats that had been 2-for-27 with runners in scoring position in the past five games finally awoke, notching a pair of breakout innings in scoring three runs in the fourth and seventh.
Starting the seventh down, 4-3, a pinch-hitting Brandon Belt walked (what else?) off Trey Wingenter. Joe Panik followed with his second hit of the game, a long single that pushed Belt to third. After Mike Yastrzemski flew out, Longoria slammed a slider to left, just out of Josh Naylor’s reach, driving in two. After a Pablo Sandoval sacrifice fly, it was 6-4 Giants, and a hard-luck fifth inning was forgotten.
For Beede, the last out – like a first win – was the hardest to get. The 26-year-old was impressive everywhere but the final statline, glimpses of brilliance getting obscured by a strange fifth-inning play.
Beede’s quality stuff was finally yielding results, getting 11 straight outs and throwing 59 pitches and 40 strikes through four innings. He located well and kept San Diego bats guessing, striking out a career-high seven without walking a batter until the fifth. His first pitch of the game, a homer to Fernando Tatis Jr., was his only blemish early on.
He faltered in the fifth with a leadoff walk to Wil Myers, who eventually came around to score on an infield single to make it 3-2 Giants.
With runners on second and third and two outs, Beede could not miss Manny Machado’s bat, the star working a 12-pitch walk and Bruce Bochy lifting Beede for Trevor Gott after 95 pitches. It would backfire.
Eric Hosmer lined it up the middle, Gott throwing up his glove and knocking the ball to the ground a few feet away. He scurried and threw to first too late. Pablo Sandoval then tossed home and had Tatis beaten, but the throw was toward the first-base side, and Stephen Vogt didn’t get the tag down quickly enough. Two runs scored on a ball hit 90 feet, and three infield singles turned into a 4-3 Padres lead.
“Expect him to go out and give us a chance,” Bochy said before the game, asked what he expected from Beede. “… Compete out there and keep us in the game and stay away from the walks and things like that that have hurt him in the past.”
In all, he allowed four runs in 4 2/3 innings, his ERA now at 8.06. But he did just what Bochy asked for.
The Giants’ offense could not get the cobwebs off its bats until the fourth. Pablo Sandoval opened the frame with a single up in the middle, and Vogt then roped a hit to right, but he was thrown out at second. Brandon Crawford, who entered play in a 4-for-25 funk, followed by bouncing to the pitcher, and Tyler Austin – getting a rare start against a righty – came through in the clutch, chopping a ball past Machado at third for the Giants’ first run.
Steven Duggar then crushed a ball 397 feet to right, putting the Giants up, 3-1.