PHOENIX — The Giants aren’t playing their worst baseball of the season. They hit the road following a .500 home stand against the two best teams in the sport. And yet, handed a walkoff 4-2 loss by the Diamondbacks to begin their series Monday evening, their losing skid reached a season-long five games in a row.
“Now that you mention it,” manager Bob Melvin said afterward, “I didn’t even think about that.”
Called on to pinch-hit against Randy Rodriguez with the score tied at 2 in the bottom of the ninth, Pavin Smith launched a two-run walkoff home run that cleared the tall wall in center field and sent the Giants to their second straight loss in a game that they were leading or was even entering its final inning.
It wasn’t as demoralizing as a late loss should be, let alone for a team that hasn’t won since Tuesday.
“We had a good series at home (against the Phillies) and got steamrolled a little bit (by the Yankees),” Melvin said. “But I don’t think it’s affected us at all.”
After stranding the go-ahead run 90 feet away when a replay review went the other way, the Giants handed the bottom half of the inning over to their young flamethrowing reliever, who struck out Lourdes Gurriel Jr. to begin the inning but served up two straight hits to end the game.
The loss was the Giants’ fifth in a row, sending them to 29-32, but was the first of the streak to come against an opponent below .500 or even not leading their own division. They led the Yankees (42-19) entering the ninth inning Sunday, trailed by only one entering the eighth the day before and took two of three from the Phillies (42-19).
In this case, it came down to an overturned call in the top half of the ninth that negated the Giants’ go-ahead run.
“With the replay,” Melvin said, “literally a game of inches.”
At first it appeared that Matt Chapman was on his way to scoring the go-ahead run and Heliot Ramos on his way to being the obvious player of the game with his second hit of the night to put the third baseman in scoring position to go with a pair of running catches in right field.
With two outs and Chapman on third, Jorge Soler bounced a ground ball to third baseman Eugenio Suarez, who fired high to first, pulling Christian Walker off the bag. First base umpire Brian Knight initially ruled Soler safe, allowing Chapman to score the go-ahead run, but the call was overturned when Arizona challenged and video showed Walker’s glove making contact with Soler’s helmet before he touched the bag.
Chapman legged out an infield single to lead off the inning and made it to third on Ramos’ third hit of the night but looked up and saw a stop sign from third base coach Matt Williams, which Melvin said was the right call, even in retrospect.
“He’s gonna be out if he gets sent at that point,” Melvin said.
Prior to the ninth, Ramos launched an opposite-field solo shot that tied the score at 2 in the seventh inning and tracked down two hard-hit fly balls to right field. The first, off the bat of Gurriel, was struck at 100.5 mph and had an expected batting average of .390; the second, from Joc Pederson, was the hardest-hit ball of the game, at 111.2 mph, and with its line-drive trajectory should have been a hit 71% of the time, according to Statcast.
“From the minute he got here, he was playing with a lot of confidence,” Melvin said. “Play him in left, play him in right, hit him everywhere in the lineup, from the middle to leadoff, and continues to play with a lot of energy. He’s playing great.”
With Michael Conforto back from a hamstring strain, Melvin opted to keep Ramos in the starting lineup over Matos while shifting Mike Yastrzemski to center field for the first time this season. Over his past eight games, Ramos is batting .345 (10-for-29) with two home runs, a double and eight RBIs.
Auditioning for the opening in the rotation created by Blake Snell’s latest ailment, Spencer Howard wasn’t quite as effective as his first appearance of the season, when he blanked the Phillies for four innings last week, but still limited the Diamondbacks to only two runs over 4⅔ innings.
Six of the Diamondbacks’ first nine balls in play against Howard were struck at 100-plus mph, including Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s solo shot that put Arizona ahead 1-0 one batter into his outing. But after Eugenio Suarez tripled and scored a second run in the inning, Howard settled in to retire 11 of the final 13 batters he faced.
Moved into the leadoff spot for the first time in his major-league career, Brett Wisely continued on his tear and supplied the bulk of the Giants’ offense against Diamondbacks starter Ryne Nelson, who limited them to one run on five hits besides Ramos’ blast, requiring only 80 pitches to complete 7⅔ innings.
Lining a single into right field for the Giants’ first hit of the game to lead off the third inning, Wisely was doubled home by Matt Chapman — who extended his on-base streak to 21 games with the 109 mph shot into the alleyway in left-center field — and later added two-bagger of his own but was stranded on base.
Since making his first start at shortstop on May 23, Wisely has hit safely in eight of 10 games, including five with two or more.
The Giants are searching for the rest of their lineup to get it going, though, as they mustered three or fewer runs for the fifth time in their past six games. They had two leadoff hits erased by double plays and went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position, including Soler’s consequential groundout.
“It just comes down to one swing,” Melvin said.
Up next
LHP Kyle Harrison vs. LHP Blake Walston (0-0, 2.16) in the second game of the series, with first pitch scheduled for 6:40 p.m. Tuesday.
A few miles east, at the Giants’ minor-league complex, RHP Keaton Winn and LHP Robbie Ray are each scheduled to pitch on rehab assignments. It will be Ray’s first live game action since undergoing Tommy John and flexor tendon surgeries last year and potentially Winn’s final tuneup before rejoining the rotation.