OAKLAND — Leadoff walks never end well for the team that allows them. It’s an adage as old as the game of baseball itself, but there’s something about giving a free pass to the first batter of an inning that gets in the head of both teams. The offense gains confidence, while the defense – namely the pitcher – loses it.
In the A’s 8-5 win on Monday’s Bay Bridge Series opener, the Giants were burned by balls. Eight of them, to be exact.
Matt Cain took the hill to start for San Francisco, and promptly issued a walk to the A’s first batter, Matt Joyce. Two singles and a sacrifice fly later, and Oakland had flipped an early 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 lead.
When Bruce Bochy decided Cain’s start – possibly his last for the foreseeable future as Johnny Cueto prepares to return from injury – was finished after five innings, Josh Osich entered. There’s no need to guess what the first batter Osich faced did. He walked. Oakland catcher Bruce Maxwell sauntered to first base with no outs on the board in the sixth, and more unpleasant events unfolded for the Giants.
Despite holding a 3-2 lead at the time, San Francisco would have been unwise to be confident in its ability to hold the advantage for four more innings when the team blew two different late leads just one night earlier. Sure enough, Osich loaded the bases by allowing a single and another walk before being replaced by George Kontos.
And as the curse of the leadoff walk would have it, Marcus Semien delivered a grand slam for Oakland that sent a little more than half of the 38,391 people in attendance into a frenzy while the A’s took a 6-3 lead they would never relinquish.
“Walks killed us,” Bochy said after the game. “In the major leagues, no, that shouldn’t happen, and that’s what did us in. I don’t know how many walks scored tonight – three, four, five, I couldn’t tell you – but we walked way, way too many guys and it came back to get us.”
Semien’s grand slam, the second of his career, proved to be enough damage for Oakland on a night where San Francisco’s bats were quite loud themselves. Eight different Giants combined for 11 hits, and a seventh inning rally brought the team within one after Semien’s dagger just an inning prior.
Brandon Belt, Buster Posey and rookie Carlos Moncrief all delivered two-hit nights. Moncrief’s pair of knocks were the first in his career, and included an RBI single that gave the Giants their short-lived 3-2 lead in the fourth inning.
The Giants came out swinging in the seventh, just after taking Semien’s punch to the mouth, and rookie Carlos Moncrief delivered a double to lead off the frame. He was caught in a pickle and tagged out after Nick Hundley grounded to the left side of the infield, but the rally continued with three more singles. Denard Span and Belt delivered RBI knocks that scored Hundley and Gorkys Hernandez, respectively, but Posey struck out to end the inning with Span on third base as the possible tying run.
It was as close as San Francisco would get the rest of the way, as Liam Hendriks and Blake Treinen closed out the game in the last two innings while Healy added two runs in the eighth with a bases-loaded single. The bullpen and late offense helped give Oakland starter Paul Blackburn his second win of the season after allowing five earned runs in 6.1 innings pitched. Cain actually delivered a more impressive stat line than his counterpart, allowing just the two first-inning runs across five frames.
The five solid innings lowered Cain’s season ERA to 5.37, which he may carry into the bullpen now that Cueto could reclaim his spot in the rotation this weekend – though a setback during Cueto’s rehab start Monday may keep Cain’s job safe. Cain was originally set to be moved to the pen after the All-Star break when Madison Bumgarner returned, but Cueto’s blister issues in his first start of the second half moved Cain back into the rotation without much time missed. Even once he was firmly back in the rotation, he’s been no stranger to uncertainty. Cain’s start, which was supposed to have come Sunday night in Los Angeles, was switched around with Bumgarner’s several days ago.
Monday marked his third start since Cueto hit the DL, and Cain allowed 11 runs (seven earned) in 15 innings in that time. Those numbers aren’t the worst three-start span Cain’s put together this season, but they probably won’t be enough to keep him starting every fifth day. After Monday’s start, Cain said the lack of a set schedule hasn’t fazed him much, whether he ends up in the bullpen or not.
“The biggest thing is it’s going to be pretty close to the day I’m starting anyway, so I think that the less I’ve actually put emphasis on it is actually helping me out,” Cain said.
If this was in fact his last start as a rotation regular, Cain went out with some swagger – literally. When Ryon Healy skied a pop up with two outs in the fifth, Cain instantly began walking off. He was at the foul line, head down and determined, when the ball finally smacked into Belt’s glove.
At the time, Cain had to feel at least semi-assured about his chances for a win, with his team leading by one. But these are the 2017 Giants, a team with which no lead is safe. Oakland’s bats were lively on Monday night, and contributed to the Giants’ fourth loss in a row, but the bullpen’s shakiness played a part in wasting Cain’s start. And besides, the leadoff walks certainly didn’t help.