SAN FRANCISCO — Even when everything goes right for the Giants’ bullpen, something still finds a way to go wrong, especially, it seems, against the Rockies.
The Giants were an inning away Friday night from a relief-heavy win over their company at the bottom of the National League West for the second time in the span of a week.
And for the second time, it all fell apart before they could close the door completely in what turned out to be yet another agonizing loss — their sixth when leading after eight innings — 4-3.
Dylan Smith, the culprit of the collapse five days earlier in Colorado, earned some redemption in his first outing since, escaping a bases-loaded jam with nobody out in the sixth in one of the most impressive single innings from a San Francisco reliever this season.
Rafael Devers gave the Giants a one-run lead in the bottom half of the inning. Keaton Winn teamed up with Sam Hentges to take down two more scoreless frames in his first appearance back from an elbow strain. Everything seemed to be setting up for a feel-good story involving one of the league’s most troublesome relief corps.
Then, manager Tony Vitello called on Caleb Kilian for his 11th save opportunity, needing three outs to protect a 2-1 lead. He recorded none.
“You’d rather have a lead than not have a lead,” Vitello said. “But it’d be nice to have a little bigger cushion.”
The first three batters Kilian faced reached base and, by the time Erik Miller had gotten out of the inning, they had all come around to flip the score in the Rockies’ favor, 4-2.
Mickey Moniak lined a two-strike fastball into right field, Kilian was nowhere near the strike zone against Troy Johnston, and Casey Schmitt couldn’t field a bunt from speedy leadoff man Jake McCarthy.
“Death by a thousand cuts, unfortunately,” Vitello said. “The one thing you can’t do is [give up] a walk. You [have] a walk and not getting an out on a bunt, that’s a recipe for a big inning.”
The loss was only made more painful by the false hope in the bottom of the ninth. Colorado closer Jordan Romano issued three walks, Devers made it a one-run game with his third RBI of the night on a sac fly and everybody was left confused when center fielder Cole Carrigg was ultimately ruled to have trapped Casey Schmitt’s line drive with Grant McCray already on second and Arraez on first with nobody out.
“I saw it off the bat and I froze. I saw, him lay out for it, and I didn’t think he caught it, but the umpire at second base, you know, he didn’t give a call,” McCray said. “So I just panicked and went back to the bag, and I was like, “Dude, like, what’s the call? What’s the call? And he didn’t say anything, so I was just standing there confused. … He really just stood there, cold as a fish.”
Had Carrigg held on it would have been the first out of the inning, and had it fallen cleanly in front it could have at least resulted in one out as the Giants’ base runners had to stall. They were all awarded a base when the ruling on the field of a catch, by the first base umpire, was overturned.
Bryce Eldridge, who already had one walkoff grand slam to his name, came up with the bases loaded but didn’t have another in him. He grounded out on the first pitch he saw from Romano’s replacement, Juan Mejia, who earned a one-pitch save for getting out of the fraught situation.
In the end, it ended up just being another strange moment in an otherwise forgettable season — and helped extend the game to 3 hours, 37 minutes, almost a third of that in the chaotic final inning.
“I think probably everybody had at least a little bit of a flashback with Bryce being up with the bases loaded and a chance to win the game,” Vitello said. “He’d gotten it done before. But the only thing that would’ve kept the game going was a hit. Probably would’ve ended it, too, there.”
Smith escaped an even trickier spot, entering with the bases loaded and nobody out in the sixth, but four clean innings, it turned out, was too much to ask of this group of relievers.
That, however, was the impossible situation Vitello was facing when he came out to get Robbie Ray with nobody out and the bases loaded in the sixth inning.
Ray walked the first three batters of the inning, finishing five-plus innings with six in total, setting up Smith to enter just about the stickiest situation imaginable.
But, against all odds, he got Tyler Freeman to pop out on a first-pitch slider, worked his way back from a 2-0 count to strike out Willi Castro and benefited from the glovework of Luis Arraez, who cleanly fielded a sharp grounder off the bat of Mickey Moniak for the third out.
Ray was waiting, arms open, waiting to show his appreciation when Smith returned to the dugout.
“That’s what you want in a reliever,” Ray said. “In that situation, it’s like you’re playing for the double play and gonna give up the run, but he was able to get out of it without a run. As a starting pitcher, that’s huge.”
Kilian, on the flip side, pitched himself into trouble he couldn’t escape. He was handed the loss and a blown save, his third in 11 opportunities. He has allowed nine earned runs in his past six appearances, raising his ERA to 4.74 from 2.97 before his last blown save.
Vitello didn’t exactly give Kilian a vote of confidence, saying “everything we do is day to day” when asked about shaking up the closer’s role. The Giants went without a closer, or many defined roles at all, until Vitello formally gave Kilian the ninth inning on June 12.
Last week at Colorado, Giants relievers had limited the Rockies to just one one over seven innings in the final two games of the series before Smith served up a three-run homer to Kyle Karros in their 7-6 loss.
Once again, Karros came up with the chance to take the lead in the ninth, with the bases juiced and trailing 4-2. Kilian sawed off his bat with a fastball at the letters, but the ball snuck through the Giants’ drawn-in infield nevertheless.
“Plenty of drama,” Vitello said. “Plenty of ups and downs.”
But, as has been the case too often this season, more of one than the other.
What it means
The Giants were likely left kicking themselves for not capitalizing on their early scoring opportunities.
They left the bases loaded in the third after the Rockies intentionally walked Devers to get to Willy Adames, stranded Drew Gilbert at third after Gary Pettis gave him what was probably a smart stop sign on a shallow hit to left field and had Luis Arraez erase one of his three hits — and a potential rally — when he decided to test Carrigg’s 99th percentile arm and got thrown out attempting to go first to second on a fly out to the warning track in center field.
It all added up to their fifth loss in eight games this season against the NL West’s perennial bottom feeders, who have some company this year. The Giants have now lost as many games to the Rockies this season as they did in the past two years combined (21-5).
Who’s hot
Devers was responsible for all of the Giants’ runs, leading off the second with his 19th home run of the season to put them ahead 1-0, and finished 3-for-3 with an intentional walk and a sacrifice fly.
The solo shot, which he golfed onto the arcade in right field, was his 17th homer in his past 58 games dating back to May 6, when he hit his third of the season. At the time, Devers was on pace for just 14 over 162 games.
Now, if he can slug one more in the next two games, he would become the first Giants hitter since Barry Bonds to go into the All-Star break with at least 20 home runs.
Who’s not
Ray continued to limit runs, yielding three or fewer for the sixth time in his past seven starts to lower his ERA to a rotation-best 3.38, but the way he got there was concerning.
He put six runners on base via walks, including the first three batters he faced in the sixth. Shockingly (or not), it was still one away from a season-high seven back on May 24.
“It felt like they kind of almost in that last inning just decided to run my pitch count up and take a strike,” Ray said. “Those pitches that were just missing, they weren’t swinging at them. That’s baseball. I need to get back in the zone in that situation.”
The left-hander struggled to land his pitches for strikes most of his time on the mound, finding the zone on only 53 of his 100 pitches, and it eventually caught up to him.
Ray threw only one strike to each of the three batters he walked to begin the sixth.
The one walk by Kilian, however, came back to hurt them the worst.
Up next
Tyler Mahle will try to complete five innings for only the second time in four starts since returning from a hamstring strain. The last time he took the mound, he allowed four runs (three) earned to the Rockies in only 4 1/3 innings, but the Giants were in line for a 6-4 win at Coors Field — then the bullpen gave out.
