Had the Giants played a clean game defensively, they would’ve secured a series win.
Instead, Thairo Estrada committed two errors. Austin Slater and Darin Ruf added one apiece.
San Francisco’s first three-error inning in over a decade led to a deciding three-run fourth inning. The fielding lapses drove starter Logan Webb’s pitch count up and pitted the Giants (30-26) behind last-place Colorado for the second time of the three-game series. The 4-2 Giants loss also highlighted a concerning season-long trend of subpar defense.
San Francisco won in extra innings on Wednesday in large part because of key defensive plays in the outfield from Mike Yastrzemski and Joc Pederson. But then the series finale served as a reminder that web gems have been outliers for SF this year.
The Giants were without Brandon Crawford, who’s dealing with right quad tightness and a sinus infection, but his presence wouldn’t have fixed things — particularly in the fourth inning.
Charlie Blackmon led off the fourth with a line drive that popped out of the pocket of Thairo Estrada’s glove. Then neither Estrada nor shortstop Donovan Walton committed to a ground ball up the middle, allowing it to squirt through the infield. When the ball arrived in the outfield, center fielder Austin Slater chucked it over Evan Longoria’s head.
For a moment, the Giants looked like a Little League team. The errors cascaded.
After Slater’s airmail, Estrada booted a chopped grounder for his second error of the inning. Three errors in the frame, plus another ground ball that escaped the infield, allowed Colorado to turn a 2-0 Giants lead into a 3-2 edge. It was San Francisco’s first three-error inning since Aug. 25, 2010.
Webb, who had cruised through the first three innings, was charged with two of the three fourth-inning runs. But the nightmarish fielding caused Webb to throw 29 pitches when he should have needed roughly half that to escape. The hardest-hit ball against him in the fourth was C.J. Cron’s single between the indecisive middle infielders — 96.3 mph with a .140 expected average.
The inning displayed miscommunication, failed execution and lack of range. SF’s inability to convert live balls into outs added up to its first three-error inning since Aug. 25, 2010 and put Colorado ahead 3-2.
That sequence was an extreme, but fielding has been a problem for the Giants for most of the season. As a team, SF is second to last — better than only the Phillies — in defensive runs saved, per Fangraphs. Other metrics paint a similar picture: San Francisco’s defense is costing it wins.
Earlier this week, manager Gabe Kapler told The Athletic that some of his team’s conditioning hasn’t been up to snuff.
“There are times when we haven’t had enough range,” he said. “There are players who haven’t shown their best range this year. I’d rather not throw anyone out there, but there are some players who are not at their best physically and in their best condition.”
The Giants believe they can make up for lack of range or talent with positioning, instruction and eventual continuity. But perhaps there’s no amount of unconventional drills infield coach Kai Correa can implement to fix things.
San Francisco’s fourth inning drove up Webb’s pitch count and its fourth error of the game — a Darin Ruf misplay on a sharp grounder — knocked him out before he could complete six innings. It also secured SF’s first four-error game since July 24, 2020 in Dodger Stadium.
SF didn’t commit any more errors after Ruf’s, though. And it wasn’t all bad; both Curt Casali and Austin Wynns, in his Giants debut, caught a runner stealing. Yastrzemski kept it a 4-2 ballgame in the eighth with a leaping robbery at the wall.
But Colorado scored on another infield single in the seventh inning, this time off reliever Tyler Rogers. The Giants still haven’t quite figured out how to optimize their defensive positioning behind Rogers, whose unconventional style often yields strange balls in play.
The Rockies never broke the game open, but SF couldn’t bridge the gap. The Giants’ second, third and fourth hitters went a combined 0-for-12 with six strikeouts.
Sometimes, San Francisco’s lineup will make up for its defense’s pitfalls. But overcoming four errors is too much to ask.