© Thomas Shea-USA TODAY Sports
A couple hours before the Giants (7-11) steamrolled themselves on Monday night against the Houston Astros (7-9), manager Gabe Kapler said he was absolutely willing to let Logan Webb toss more than 80 pitches and work into the sixth inning.
Assuming, of course, Webb was “cruising and dealing.”
That, Webb was not. Though, pointing to Webb as the cause of Monday night’s 6-4 loss to the Astros is ill-advised. He was perhaps the least to blame for a display, which, for about 8 innings, was nothing short of embarrassing.
Donovan Solano, replacing Evan Longoria at third base, discernibly forgot how to play the position. He had two errors, one, in which he pegged Alex Bregman running for home, which simultaneously failed to secure an out, and allowed a run, and a second, which ended Webb’s night.
He wasn’t alone in his defensive indiscretions. Chadwick Tromp prevented a ground out from actually being recorded as an out, thanks to getting his glove into Josh Reddick’s bat, and notching the Giants’ league-leading fourth catcher’s interference of the season.
The MLB league-wide total for catcher’s interference? Nine.
Tromp also allowed a passed ball (recorded as a wild pitch, but clearly a unified effort of inadequacy on behalf both Webb and Tromp), which later allowed the Astros’ opening run to score.
Just as it would be unfair to pin this loss on Webb, it would be simultaneously unfair to do the same to the Giants’ horrendous, clearly league-worst defense.
To be clear, though, it is the league’s worst, entering Monday’s affair with a last-ranked .970 team fielding percentage, again, before the three errors on Monday. That fielding percentage would be league average… in 1936. That was the last time baseball players were, on average, as poor at fielding the ball as the Giants currently are. Someone get these boys a fungo.
But hey, the offense was also nonexistent, at least for 6 1/3 innings.
Every Giants batter, with the exception of Mike Yastrzemski, who had a sharply hit, would-be RBI single which found its way to Jose Altuve, and a line out to center field, was all too eager to get out of the batter’s box and return swiftly to the dugout.
By the conclusion of the sixth inning, McCullers, who began the evening with a 9.22 ERA, had thrown just 73 pitches, had five strikeouts, and not allowed a single hit. Tromp nearly caught him with a first-pitch shot down the left field line to open that sixth, but the side was quickly retired.
But it wasn’t all bad, thanks to who else, but Donovan Solano, and a bizarre, late rally.
The man who was substantially responsible for making the evening the disaster it quickly became, was the one who prevented it from being remembered, at least undeniably, as the worst night of the Giants’ abbreviated season.
He took McCullers down the third-base line, just a hair past Bregman’s glove, and his quickly exasperated face, for a one-out double, which of course, resulted in nothing other than the joy of preventing a no-hitter. On a night like Monday, that counts for something.
So does the sole run of the evening, which came courtesy of Austin Slater, who drove a solo home run to right field against Josh James, who relieved McCullers in the eighth.
There was some competent offense late, as James sputtered through Yastrzemski and Alex Dickerson in the ninth, walking the former and allowing a hard single to the latter.
For a moment, down 6-1 with runners on the corners, no outs, a struggling reliever and Solano, maybe the most reliable batter on the roster at the plate, there was a tinge of a hint of a comeback brewing. Solano continued that energy, tearing a ball off the left-center field wall, just right of the in-cutting portion of left field at Minute Maid Park.
Brandon Belt and Wilmer Flores attempted to throw a wedge into the gut of that all-too-briefly swinging pendulum, with both Belt — now batting .133 on the season — and Flores popping out to shallow left field.
Of all people, Brandon Crawford, now batting. 159, singled up the middle to drive both Dickerson and Solano home. Slater wasn’t one to get in the way, hitting a bloop single to right field, placing runners at the corners, trailing just 6-4, with a pinch-hitting Evan Longoria to hit.
Longoria’s contact was solid, swinging at the first pitch he saw, but Josh Reddick reeled it in to end a game, which was clearly lost in the third inning.
Webb did get through 3 1/3 innings, and while he was not his previously stellar self, allowing four hits and a walk, he struck out three and did not allow much in the way of clean contact. Yuli Gurriel’s double in the second was maybe the only clean hit of the evening against him, and became a run, thanks to the passed ball/wild pitch combination by Webb and Tromp.
His nightmare inning, that third, opened with a strikeout. He then allowed a single, and a would-be groundout became a baserunner thanks to Tromp’s catcher’s interference, which Webb followed with a walk. Michael Brantley promptly drove a pair of runs home with a flukey, bloop double into the triangle behind Solano at third.
A guaranteed out was then wasted by Solano, who tried to go home with the ball, pegging Bregman in the back, and allowing another run. A Carlos Correa groundout followed, scoring yet another run due to that Solano error, and putting the finishing touches on a woeful four-run third.
In all for Webb: five runs, two earned. He was relieved by Connor Menez in the fourth after that second Solano error, a throwing error. Menez immediately drew a 4-6-3 double play, as if the defense was trying to say, “hey, look, we can do this!”
Menez was mostly good, allowing a single and hitting a batter, but also drawing a triplet of fly outs in the fifth inning, before, in the sixth, Martin Maldonado hit a ball which leapt over the left field fence about as quick as it reached Maldonado’s bat, for the sixth Astros run of the evening.