Joe Musgrove strikes out 11 in Padres 5-4 win over SF Giants
The SF Giants lost their seventh-straight game on Wednesday, falling 5-4 to the Padres and dropping more than ten games out of the playoffs for the first time this season. The bottom has fallen out in San Francisco, and the Giants are still trying to hit the bottom.
It looked like a pitcher's duel was on the horizon early. Starting pitchers Joe Musgrove and Alex Wood breezed through the first two innings, combining for 8 strikeouts without allowing a base runner. But that did not stop some early game drama, thanks to the umpires.
Following the second inning, with the Giants' defense taking the field, Brandon Crawford exchanged some words with third-base umpire Ryan Blakney. Blakney had called Crawford out swinging in the previous inning (a clearly incorrect call upon watching a replay). Crawford was promptly ejected.
Crawford obviously could have said something that crossed the line in the interaction, but Blakney seemed particularly trigger-happy, choosing not to walk away from Crawford while they were jawing between innings and then ejecting him after Crawford had stopped talking. Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic noted that Blakney looked like he "was waiting to engage" with Crawford.
Nevertheless, the Giants, who were already shorthanded with Evan Longoria and Austin Slater nursing injuries on their bench, were forced to replace Crawford. Manager Gabe Kapler moved Thairo Estrada from second base to short, Wilmer Flores from third base to second, and J.D. Davis entered.
Tommy La Stella ended Musgrove's perfect outing with a groundball up the middle that bounced off second base into the outfield for a single to lead off the third. However, a lineout by Luis González and Austin Wynns double play quickly quashed any hopes of a rally.
The Padres responded by ending Wood's no-hit bid with a Ha-Seong Kim single to lead off the fourth, but unlike the Giants, San Diego capitalized. Juan Soto followed Kim's single with a walk and Manny Machado drove in a run with a single of his own.
The Giants were able to keep the Padres from doing any more damage. Wood responded to the RBI by striking out Josh Bell, but then Brandon Drury blasted a fly ball that carried well to center field, where Mike Yastrzemski made a great catch while jumping against the wall. With both Padres runners off to the races, expecting the ball to fall, Yastrzemski tossed the ball back to the infield for an inning-ending double play.
The fifth inning was another bumpy inning for Wood. This time, his outfield defense put him in an early hole. Myers led off the fifth with a line drive hit straight at Joc Pederson. Pederson slid in perfectly to make the catch, but the ball bounced right out of his glove. It was ruled a single but should have been caught.
Two hits, two outs, a hit batter, and one run later, Wood was lifted with two outs and the bases loaded for Zack Littell. Littell immediately faced off against Machado and left a fastball in the middle of the plate. Machado blasted it into triples-alley for a ground-rule double to extend the Padres' lead to 4-0.
Another quiet inning from the Giants' offense, which featured more bickering between them and home plate umpire Adrian Johnson, sent Littell back to the mound where he surrendered more hard contact. Myers followed up a leadoff single with a double that set up a sacrifice fly to bring another run across.
Wynns ended Musgrove's scoreless outing with an RBI-double in the bottom of the sixth. However, Musgrove struck out LaMonte Wade Jr. and Yastrzemski to end the inning before any other runs could score.
Alex Young entered from the Giants bullpen in the top of the seventh and retired the heart of the Padres lineup in order. In the bottom half of the inning, Musgrove stumbled for the first time in the outing. He issued a leadoff walk to Flores and then hit Pederson and Davis to load the bases with no outs.
Estrada grounded into a force out on the first pitch but beat out the double play and cut the lead to 5-2. Now, Tommy La Stella represented the tying run and got ahead 3-1 in the count before lining out to second base. Representing the Giants' last hope to keep the rally going, González took a first-pitch fastball the other way for an RBI single.
Bob Melvin pulled Musgrove and turned to lefty Adrian Morejón to try and end the Giants rally, which he did by striking out Wynns.
Kapler turned to Dominic Leone in the eighth, likely hoping to help the righty get out of his recent funk. Leone did not allow a run, but the outing was far from encouraging. He hung a slider to Brandon Drury that was blasted to the left-center wall for a double and walked Jurickson Profar.
The Giants cut the Padres lead in half in the eighth off Morejón, who allowed a pinch-hit double to Longoria and an RBI single to Pederson, but that capped off the scoring for the day.
Scott Alexander entered out of the Giants pen in the top of the ninth and threw a 1-2-3 inning. Then came Padres closer Josh Hader, who has had some mighty implosions this season against the Giants. Estrada led off the inning with a bloop single and advanced to second on a wild pitch, but San Francisco's hitters were unable to get the tying run across.
The SF Giants are now 61-68 on the season. They have a much-needed day off tomorrow before hosting the Phillies for a three-game series that starts on Thursday, September 2nd at 7:15 pm Pacific.
