Unfortunately you can\u2019t spread runs around.<\/p>\n
Goal differential or aggregate scoring doesn\u2019t decide a series in baseball. If it did, the Giants 19-6 pile on against the Colorado Rockies would\u2019ve secured them a sweep with some runs to spare.<\/p>\n
Alas, what\u2019s done is done. This ain\u2019t religion: the sins of Friday and Saturday can\u2019t be erased with the mea culpas and genuflects of Sunday \u2014 no matter how many Hail Mary doubles a team hits.<\/p>\n
The Giants did hit a lot of those. Nine in fact by six different hitters. Rafael Devers collected three, Bryce Eldridge peppered two off the wall in center and left, and recent call-up, Jonah Cox,<\/a> bagged a two-bagger for his first Major League hit in his first Major League at-bat \u2014 off a position player, but who cares?<\/p>\n San Francisco\u2019s 19 runs<\/a> and 25 hits on the day<\/a> were the most single game total for any MLB team so far this season. 13 of those knocks went for extra base hits, eclipsing the year\u2019s previous high of 10<\/a> (hit by the Yankees earlier this week). Every Giants player who logged an at-bat earned a hit in this game, and 10 of the 11 knocked in a run. As a team, they went 10-for-22 with runners in scoring position. Five hitters collected three or more hits. Bryce Eldridge finished a triple shy of the cycle, his four hits shot his average up from .192 to .241. Jung Hoo Lee claimed his first five-hit night of his career (including two in one inning), giving him 13 total hits over his first three games back from the IL. He\u2019s now batting .304 with a .774 OPS.<\/p>\n Good for him and for him and for him and for him and for him\u2026 but after the week this team just put us through, you\u2019re allowed to feel jaded about this one. This team has made us grouches and curmudgeons and skeptics of us all, and the timing of this Coorsy slugfest just feels a little bit in poor taste. At times it felt like watching a self-indulgent experimental art film with a three-and-a-half hour runtime. It begged the question: Who is this for really? Nothing like a blow-out to pad the individual stats, skew the season averages, and store away some hits for a rainy day.<\/p>\n This team has had a lot of these types of games: Sunday steamers that are all hoo-rah and exclamation points that make us forget the cruel chill of the coming Monday. Offensive surges that are all sound and fury, but signify nothing. 19 runs at Coors Field \u2014 yeah, got to be another blip, right?<\/p>\n Right. The only thing that might refute that is time, if we can look back on this outlier as the game the team re-discovered their legs and took their first step up the basement stairs and out of the cellar.<\/p>\n If we were being our most optimistic selves, what would those signs of life be? Perhaps this game will serve as a major boost for Bryce Eldridge in his early career. He had been putting together some great at-bats, making solid contact, but his slash line didn\u2019t have much to show for it. That changed today. Results started to come. He led off the 2nd with a double on the eighth pitch of the AB from starter Tanner Gordon. He twice laid off 2-strikes change-ups below the zone, and twice fought off fastballs, before drilling another offspeed pitch to the wall in deep center. He\u2019d work the count full again in the 4th and backspin a sinker to the opposite field corner. The only time he chased out of the zone was after a 3-1 sinker above the belt that swatted 453 feet to dead center.<\/p>\n As a whole, the order responded well to a rather embarrassing two-error, two-run flub by starter Robbie Ray in the 4th that whittled San Francisco\u2019s lead to just one run at the time. A one run lead in Denver essentially means you\u2019re behind, and Ray had taken all of San Francisco\u2019s momentum and airmailed it over first base into right field. It was the kind of mistake that had ruined San Francisco \u2014 and much better teams \u2014 before. Instead, four pitches into their next-ups, a pair of doubles from Lee and Matt Chapman had taken back one of those runs. Six consecutive Giants reached base with two outs later in the 5th, scoring six more runs thanks to Willy Adames\u2019s grand slam. They didn\u2019t stop there either, but continued to add on in each of the remaining frames because there\u2019s no such thing as \u201coverkill\u201d in the Mile-High city.<\/p>\n Encouraging things happened that might lead to other encouraging things as the Giants make their way down the mountain and back to the land of reality\u2026but don\u2019t hold your breath. This offense likes to get hot and then go real cold real fast. Maybe it becomes more consistent and dynamic with more reliable contributions from Eldridge and Lee. Sure! And also, the offense isn\u2019t really what worries me. It\u2019s the pitching, and Robby Ray, that worries me.<\/p>\n I know it\u2019s never fair to judge the arms in a rout, especially in Colorado \u2014 but Ray did not look sharp from the get-go. He needed 96 pitches to record 12 outs. Rockies bats just wrung him out like a dish towel just as they did to Adrian Houser yesterday<\/a>. They put him in the stretch and had him stressed about runners in scoring position in every frame. They stole three bases behind him, and easily too. He did well to manage the threat, allowing one earned run on a sac fly while striking out 6, but 10 three ball count and 8 full counts, including two 10+ pitch plate-appearances, took their toll. Willi Castro\u2019s 11-pitch battle with two on and two outs in the 4th nearly killed him.<\/p>\n An inside sinker shattered Castro\u2019s bat and produced a comebacker, but by that point, Ray was so gassed that he couldn\u2019t bend down far enough to field the ball. He eventually recovered the baseball after it glanced off his glove, but in his haste to make the play, the throw sailed over Devers\u2019 head. Two runs scored. Ray did hold the Rockies hitless in 8 at-bats with RISP, yet they still scored 3 runs thanks to a wild pitch set up a sacrifice fly and that disastrous throwing error.<\/p>\n