Wandy Peralta. Chris Mezzavilla/KNBR
Give the Giants’ bullpen credit: They mixed things up after a couple rough days, selecting a different inning and different culprits to implode.
The last two games were back-breakers for the Giants, and the A’s responded Sunday with an inning of ball-breakers, a lineup of muscled men swinging hammers and trying to outdo the last at a carnival that Oracle Park apparently hosted.
The A’s fifth-inning onslaught against first Wandy Peralta and then Dereck Rodriguez included 2,215 feet of hits, approaching a half-mile of distance. Three Giants pitchers totaled 47 pitches against 13 batters in the frame that led to nine runs. The A’s, perhaps fans of Pepsi, had zeroed in on the Coca-Cola bottle beyond the left-field seats and nearly struck it a couple times.
When it was finished, boy was the game finished. The Giants fell, 15-3, getting swept at the A’s hands and finding different ways to unravel, heartbreaking ninth-inning displays arriving Friday and Saturday.
Sunday the collapse did not need to wait from a bullpen that entered play with a 5.70 ERA and minus-1.8 WAR from relievers (per Fangraphs), which was the worst in baseball. Both of those figures will take big dents.
It was a 2-2 game when Logan Webb started the fifth and walked Sean Murphy — his career-worst fifth base on balls in the game — before recording his final out and getting pulled after 88 pitches. The Giants’ bullpen gate may have well have been the floodgates.
Peralta’s first pitch ensured the Giants extended their streak to 19 games in which they have allowed at least one homer. Chad Pinder demolished a fastball — exit velocity of 112.1 mph — to put the A’s up two. But that would be an appetizer for the rotten meat the Giants (8-15) were about to be served.
Mark Canha turned Peralta’s fastball into a two-run triple. After Robbie Grossman walked, it was Rodriguez’s turn to take a beating.
Apparently Giants-killer Stephen Piscotty destroyed a Rodriguez curveball 454 feet, way up in the left-field seats, to crank the deficit to 9-2. Rodriguez, recently up from Sacramento, had to keep wearing the defeat and could be sent back down soon for a fresher arm, and watched Marcus Semien, as the A’s next trick, slam one just over the left-field fence for the final indignity.
It would have been worse, but Alex Dickerson robbed Matt Chapman at the wall to end a frame that would not end.
The A’s would add a few more in the sixth and eighth, but innings that result in fewer than three runs off the Giants bullpen suddenly barely register.
Trevor Gott, Tony Watson and Tyler Rogers were unavailable after being used two days in a row, but Peralta and Rodriguez ensured they would not be needed.
The last time the Giants allowed at least nine runs in an inning was May 5, 2016, against Colorado, when they allowed 13 runs in the fifth. With the way the Giants’ bullpen has been pitching, that mark is in jeopardy.
Their most effective pitcher was Tyler Heineman, who switched from catcher to the mound in the ninth. Throwing high-60s curveball after high-60s curveball, Heineman faced the minimum, Mauricio Dubon making a terrific diving catch off Vimael Machin’s bat that started a double play. Heineman may have to do double-duty for the next few weeks.
Just as Gott’s ninth innings wiped out all good from the past two games, the Giants’ fifth took Wite-Out to the previous findings.
Forgotten were nice days from the Brandons, both hitting home runs. It was Crawford’s first of the year and followed his first extra-base hit, a hustle double, earlier in the game. Belt’s bullet to right was registered at 107.8 mph off his bat, his hardest hit since 2017.
Webb was wild and inefficient but kept the Giants in the game, lasting 4 1/3 innings of three-run ball while surrendering three hits.
Once he left, though, so did the Giants’ chances of even keeping the game competitive.