A night after scoring 10 runs on 14 hits while matching their San Francisco-era record for doubles in a game, the Giants started 0-for-16.
Connor Seabold took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, shutting down the Giants offense in Coors Field — where offenses rarely go quiet.
But the same environment that rarely holds lineups down makes for quick turnarounds.
Once the Giants broke through, they mounted a five-run comeback. Against Colorado’s bullpen, San Francisco rallied for three runs in the seventh and two more in the eighth.
All eight of SF’s hits were singles, and the biggest hit of the game was a go-ahead safety squeeze — an incidental homage to the late Roger Craig. The Giants (31-30) didn’t have a hit until the sixth inning, but topped Colorado, 5-4.
Before the comeback, the Giants were 1-25 when trailing after seven innings. They hadn’t erased a four-run deficit until this comeback victory.
Seabold has spent more time in Reading, Pennsylvania at Double-A than in the Majors. Wednesday was just his 13th MLB start — and 20th appearance overall — in his third season in The Show.
Against Seabold, who carried a 5.40 ERA into the night, the Giants’ lineup couldn’t generate the same damage they did against Colorado the previous night. But they did put some solid swings on pitches.
In the third inning, Brandon Crawford flew out to right field, where Nolan Jones made a leaping grab at the warning track. Had the ball — which had a .530 expected batting average — dropped, Crawford would’ve had a double.
The next inning, Jurickson Profar robbed Michael Conforto of a double. Instead, his airborne catch at the left field wall generated a 351-foot out that would’ve left 18 of 30 ballparks.
In the sixth, Profar again slammed into the left field padding to snatch extra bases from Thairo Estrada.
Webb, opposite Seabold, lost his streak of eight consecutive quality starts. The Rockies tagged him for three runs in the second inning and Jones smoked a 483-foot homer off him in the sixth.
That second inning was nearly catastrophic, but Michael Conforto saved two runs with an inning-ending diving catch in right field.
Webb’s ERA is still 3.09, and four earned runs in 5.1 innings of altitude is far from a blow-up. It was an outlier for the ace who has climbed the Cy Young ladder with a 1.95 ERA in the past six weeks entering Wednesday.
One trend followed Webb, though: the Giants didn’t provide him with any run support. In the 84.2 innings with Webb on the mound this season, the Giants have scored 25 runs. That’s a run support average of 1.92 — Matt Cain levels of misfortune.
LaMonte Wade Jr.’s single in the sixth inning broke Seabold’s no-hit bid.
But once Webb, and Seabold, exited, the Giants made their move. A walk and four straight singles, primarily against Colorado reliever Brent Suter, turned the Rockies’ 4-0 lead into a one-run deficit in the seventh inning.
In the surge, Casey Schmitt’s 2-RBI single trimmed Colorado’s lead to 4-3.
The next frame, Austin Slater (2 singles, 2 RBI, 1 run) drove in the tying run, and Patrick Bailey laid down a perfect bunt to score Mitch Haniger on a safety squeeze. Haniger’s slide to the corner of home plate just beat the flip.
Roger Craig, the former Giants manager who died this week, was known for calling suicide squeeze plays. The go-ahead run coming on a well-executed bunt play inspired Dave Flemming to say “the Humm Baby is smiling” on the game broadcast.
The smiles kept coming for the Giants’ dugout as the bullpen — led by Tristan Beck, the Rogers brothers and Camilo Doval in the ninth — protected the lead they earned.