SF Giants bullpen delivers, but offense falls flat in 2-1 loss to Pirates
The SF Giants fell to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday evening at Oracle Park, losing 2-1. While the Giants received a strong effort from their pitching staff in a bullpen game, the lineup was unable to build more than one run-scoring rally. Now 28-27 on the season, the Giants are now 5.5 games back of the Los Angeles Dodgers for the top spot in the National League West.
SF Giants righty John Brebbia pitches against the Pirates on May 30, 2023.
D. Ross Cameron-USA TODAY Sports
John Brebbia started a bullpen game for the Giants on his 33rd birthday. The veteran righty retired the first two batters of the game, but former Giants outfielder Connor Joe crushed a backup 3-2 slider for a solo home run to give the Pirates an early 1-0 lead. Lefty Sean Manaea replaced Brebbia following Joe's blast and struck out Jack Suwinski to end the inning.
The Giants quickly ensured Brebbia would not record a loss on his birthday. Facing righty Johan Oviedo, Mike Yastrzemski and J.D. Davis worked walks in the bottom of the first inning, which setup Michael Conforto for a game-tying RBI single.
After scoring 14 runs in Monday afternoon's victory, the Giants' offense was far quieter on Tuesday. While Oviedo struggled to command his pitches throughout his outing, walking five across 4.1 innings pitched, he did not surrender another run.
Manaea continued his recent stretch of quality outings since moving to the bullpen. He breezed through the second, third, and fourth innings without allowing a runner to reach scoring position. However, the Pirates were able to break the tie against Manaea in the fifth.
Rodolfo Castro and Jason Delay hit back-to-back singles with one out in the fifth inning. Giants left fielder Mitch Haniger mishandled a bounce on Delay's hit, allowing it to bounce past him. The error put runners on second and third.
With Josh Palacios at the plate, Manaea threw a slider to the third base side of the plate. Catcher Patrick Bailey (Giants #21 prospect) was slow to open his mitt on the pitch, and it bounced off his glove and trickled away from him. While Bailey made an excellent recovery, his throw to Manaea covering home was ultimately too late to prevent the runner from scoring.
The pitch was inexplicably ruled a wild pitch instead of a passed ball, which means the run is ultimately charged to Manaea's ERA, but Bailey should have made the play. It's worth remembering, despite the high expectations for Bailey's defense, he has struggled to avoid costly errors throughout his minor-league career that have frustrated evaluators.
Bailey recorded five errors and six passed balls in just 21 games at catcher this season in the minors. Neither of those numbers would suggest that Bailey is as good of a defender as he is.
Bailey has incredible instincts and confidence behind the plate. It's a huge part of the reason pitchers throughout the organization have quickly developed an immense amount of trust in the 2020 first-round pick. However, that confidence can lead to some mistakes.
Bailey is excellent at stealing strikes at the edge of the zone, but he tends to be more hesitant to abandon a framing approach to catching a pitch. That split-second hesitation can lead him to open his glove late, as he did on Tuesday night, or simply not give himself enough time to corral a pitch outside of the strike zone.
Yet, there's a reason the Giants were willing to put up with those occasional miscues. On the next play, Palacios hit a ground ball to LaMonte Wade Jr., whose throw to the plate seemed way too late to tag out Delay at the plate. However, Bailey had done an amazing job anticipating Delay's slide, blocking him from reaching the plate with his left foot and crashing down to tag him out. Then, on the next pitch, Bailey made a beautiful pick of a wild slider from righty Ryan Walker and fluidly used his momentum from fielding the pitch to pick Palacios off first base to end the inning.
Walker issued one walk across a shutout inning of work before he was replaced by left-handed reliever Scott Alexander. Alexander completed a shutout inning before he was replaced by Jakob Junis after allowing a base hit. Junis went 1.1 innings shutout innings working around a hit while striking out three. Finally, Taylor Rogers finished things out by striking out the side in the top of the ninth.
The Giants used six pitchers on Tuesday night, who combined to strike out 11 Pirates hitters while allowing just two runs on six hits and two walks.
The bullpen's valiant effort kept the Giants one swing away from taking the lead or tying things up for the entire game. But even though San Francisco had plenty of baserunners, they were unable to bring a second run around to score. In fact, the Giants had their lead-off hitter reach base five times, including a double from Wade, and they were unable to bring any of them around to score.
The SF Giants will look to finish off their series against the Pirates with a win on Wednesday afternoon. Lefty Alex Wood will start on the mound for the Giants, facing off against Pirates ace Mitch Keller. First pitch is scheduled for 12:45 PM Pacific at Oracle Park.
