Hayden Birdsong tried to send a message early to the Miami Marlins on Thursday, and it couldn’t have aged worse for the Giants starter in a 12-5 loss at Oracle Park.
Facing his third batter of the game with two outs and no one on, Birdsong’s 97-mph four-seam fastball hit Marlins second baseman Otto López. Umpires met on the field to discuss the pitch and ultimately gave each team a warning one day after three Giants batters were plunked in an 8-5 loss Wednesday night.
Marlins manager Clayton McCullough stormed out of the dugout and expressed his frustrations with the umpire crew, and seconds later, his team responded.
Miami designated hitter Agustin Ramirez doubled to left on the very next pitch from Birdsong. Four pitches later in the following at-bat versus Kyle Stowers, the Marlins outfielder smashed a 440-foot homer to center to give Miami an early 3-0 lead in the first inning.
Despite how quickly things unraveled for Birdsong within the blink of an eye, he downplayed the hit on López while speaking to reporters after the game.
“Things happen,” he said. “You hit guys and you move on.”
That is exactly what Birdsong and the Giants tried to do.
Ramirez’s two-run homer put the Marlins on top 5-0 in the third, but the Giants’ offense rallied in the bottom of the third and fourth innings, scoring five combined runs to tie things up entering the fifth.
But the clean slate didn’t last long for San Francisco, as Birdsong returned to the bump at the top of the fifth and immediately walked the first two batters. Birdsong finally was pulled and replaced by Giants reliever Spencer Bivens, who struck out the first two batters but couldn’t fully overcome the damage Birdsong left as the Marlins scored three more runs.
“I felt great until the fifth, honestly,” Birdsong said. “Don’t know what happened. But it is what it is. It wasn’t good enough. … It’s disappointing.
“Definitely disappointing for me today just coming in here trying to get a win, and obviously didn’t. I could’ve done better. That’s what you take away from it.”
Birdsong allowed seven runs on four hits and four walks while striking out one over four-plus innings to take the loss Thursday. It’s his second consecutive rough outing, as the 23-year-old has allowed 12 runs (11 earned) over his last 8.1 innings and now is at a 4.13 ERA and 1.38 WHIP across 56.2 innings over 18 appearances this season.
“Kind of like the last outing, his veto is kind of all over the place,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said postgame of Birdsong. ” … Birdy’s command wasn’t great today. And then kind of blew up right after that for three runs, so regardless of how that went down, we didn’t respond well. And then the first couple of innings we didn’t look too good either and then all of a sudden came back, scored some runs and now we have a tie game.
“Now there’s a lot more energy in the dugout, but we gave up some runs after that. It is what it is. … That’s kind of not who he is, and it’s just not his best game.”
While Melvin knows and expects better of Birdsong, he couldn’t help but acknowledge the frustrations of being swept by the Marlins. And those same sentiments were echoed by Birdsong, who hopes to get back on track as he tentatively is scheduled for a road start against the Arizona Diamondbacks early next week.
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