The night time is the right time for the 2025 San Francisco Giants in 2025, while the day games are no-way games. It took two hours for the Giants’ bats to wake up Wednesday, while rookie Carson Seymour’s arm never got started at all in a 5-3 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The boys in orange and black fell to 30-32 on the season in day games after the Diamondbacks got to Seymour for 4 runs in the first 1.1 innings, then held on after a furious late-inning rally from the Giants that made it a 5-3 final. The Giants had only two baserunners in the first six innings against winning pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez (8-8), and a combination of rough base-running and lack of clutch hitting doomed them in the final three.
It didn’t take long for the Diamondbacks to tee off on Seymour (1-3), who was coming off a nice five-inning performance in St. Louis Friday for his first major-league win. Geraldo Perdomo, suddenly a power threat in his fifth MLB season, led off the game with his 18th home run of the season. He would both begin and end Seymour’s day on Wednesday.
In the second inning, the D-Backs strung together three straight singles for a 2-0 lead, and after a sacrifice bunt, Perdomo hit an RBI single to chase Seymour. Spencer Bivens yielded a sac fly and walked the bases loaded before getting out of the inning, then settled down.
It was an interesting outing for Bivens. He let one Diamondback reach base in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th innings only to see all of them erased. Heliot Ramos threw out Alek Thomas trying to stretch a single in the 3rd. Jake McCarthy was hit by a pitch in the 4th, then Casey Schmidt turned a 4-6-3 double play. Corbin Carroll, who has 26 steals, got picked off by Bivens after he walked in the 5th.
Meanwhile, Rodriguez was shutting down the Giants hitters, who seemed sluggish amid the early start and gloomy weather. After Rafael Devers walked in the first inning, Rodriguez retired the next 12 Giants batters, with only two of them getting them ball out of the infield. He got some help from his fielders, particularly third baseman Blaze Alexander, who sounds like he was named after a flaming dessert.
Alexander robbed Luis Matos to start the third thanks to an impressive stretch by Tim Tawa, then made two highlight plays to thwart Patrick Bailey in both the 3rd and 6th innings.
The Giants finally got to Rodriguez in the 7th inning, when Willy Adames walked and Matt Chapman singled him to third. With one out, Jake Woodford came in to face Casey Schmidt, who fouled off two 3-2 pitches before whiffing on a sweeper — which saw Chapman get hung up on a bad steal attempt. After a double rundown, the D-Backs threw out Adames trying to steal home in the chaos.
In the 8th, Bailey finally hit one past Alexander for a single to left, then Ramos reached on an infield hit. That brought up Devers, one of the Giants who hits better in the daytime (.269/.393/.572 before today’s game). He drilled a ball to the deepest part of the ball park that hit the top of the wall and left him with a two-run, 425-foot double. It goes without saying that it would have been a home run in the other 29 ballparks.
There’s no doubt that if the game had been in Arizona, a fan would have reached out and caught the near-homer.
Devers was stranded on second and the score remained 5-2. In the 9th, Chapman walked and Schmidt doubled him to third with one out. But with the tying run at the plate, Jung Hoo Lee and Matos each grounded out, and the Giants fell just short of the series sweep.
They’re now 2.5 games behind the New York Mets in the wild-card race, pending the outcome of their game with the Philadelphia Phillies later. By the time Shohei Ohtani takes the mound against Justin Verlander on Friday night, the Giants could be anywhere from one to four games behind the Metropolitans, which leaves them no choice but to sweep the Los Angeles Dodgers over the weekend.
On the positive side, two games are at night! And one features Logan Webb. It was a missed opportunity to gain ground Wednesday, but the Giants should be well-rested and wide-awake for their next series.