SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants’ playoff hopes aren’t dead, but they’ve made their jobs much more difficult.
Needing to secure at least a split of this four-game series against the Braves to capture a potentially important head-to-head tiebreaker, the Giants did themselves no favors by dropping the first two contests and by the time they came to bat Wednesday could pretty much kiss those hopes goodbye.
A game that was about as must-win as they come began with a clunker of epic proportions from Robbie Ray and ended, 13-2, with another left-hander — outfielder Mike Yastrzemski — having about as much luck finding the strike zone to the amusement of the 27,460 who stuck around for the drubbing.
Dropping their fourth straight game, the loss guaranteed that no matter the outcome of Sunday’s series finale the Giants will have an extra game to make up by way of losing the season series and the potential determining factor should they to catch Atlanta in the win-loss column, where the gap grew to 4½ games.
Ray walked off the mound after his 39th pitch sailed wide of the strike zone and issued his third free pass of the first inning. He also hit the first two batters he faced, spiking Jorge Soler in the foot with a slider and running a fastball in on Austin Riley’s hands, and served up a knuckle curve on a such a shiny silver platter that Michael Harris II, in his first major-league at-bat since June, sent it on a 107.3 mph line directly into McCovey Cove.
Ray’s second walk of the inning, to Orlando Arcia, forced in the Braves’ first run and Harris made it 5-0 with his grand slam, the second home run to reach the water this season and the first by an opponent. The five runs represented the most Ray has allowed in an outing as a Giant, while the two outs matched the shortest start of his career, but the way it took place put it in an entirely different dimension.
Harris’ grand slam was the only hit Ray allowed, making him the third pitcher in Giants history and the first since 1951 to allow five or more runs on one or fewer hits. So erratic and short-lived was Ray’s outing that it put him in the company of only 17 other pitchers (six starters) to walk at least three batters and hit at least two in an outing of an inning or less.
The Braves continued to pile on with another six runs on three home runs against Sean Hjelle, Erik Miller and Taylor Rogers.
Leading off the bottom half of the first, Tyler Fitzgerald began cutting into the deficit as soon as he could, connecting on the first pitch he saw from Atlanta starter Grant Holmes and sending it into the left field bleachers for his second home run in as many games. But Atlanta’s onslaught proved too much to overcome for an offense that had failed to eclipse four runs in any of the first five games of the home stand.
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The Giants pounded out nine hits — only two shy of the Braves’ total — but manufactured just one other run, when Patrick Bailey led off the seventh with a double and Brett Wisely singled him home. Falling to 2-4 on the home stand, the Giants are batting .183 (36-for-197) — 3-for-24 with runners in scoring position — while averaging 2.5 runs over their past six games.
Notable
Yastrzemski threw 27 pitches, ranging from 44.7 mph to 67.3 mph and only two that were called strikes by home plate umpire Adam Beck.
Up next
Looking to avoid being swept, the Giants send RHP Logan Webb (10-8, 3.32) to the mound against LHP Max Fried (7-6, 3.56). First pitch is scheduled for 12:45 p.m.
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