Aug. 10, 2018 - Source: Pool/Getty Images North America
After honoring the crap out of Barry Bonds (A+++ speech from Willie Mays, by the way), the game finally got started with Ty Blach toeing the rubber and hoping to help the Giants win and get back up to the coveted .500 win percentage.
Blach has not started in a game since May 27th against the Cubs but has made 21 relief appearances, going 3-1 with a 3.18 ERA. Also, here’s a nice piece of trivia/irony - the Giants are 6-6 in his 12 starts. HE’S A .500 PITCHER. I’m sorry, but is that not incredibly fitting? How could this go wrong?
errrrr...
The Pirates drew first blood in the 3rd inning when Josh Harrison was put on the base paths via a walk (walking the lead-off batter should be on the top of the “DO NOT DO” list and pasted to the clubhouse door) and eventually scored off a sac-fly by Corey Dickerson. He was able to get out of the inning otherwise unscathed, Pirates 1-0.
Unfortunately, the Pirates were not finished. Blach gave up two lead-off singles to Gregory Polanco and David Freese, struck out Francisco Cervelli, and then promptly gave up a three-run dinger above the Chevron cars in left field to Josh Bell, Pirates 4-0.
And that’s basically all they wrote for Ty Blach (4.0 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 5 SO, 1 HR).
Enter Casey Kelly.
Casey Kelly came into the game in the fifth, making his San Francisco debut and immediately retiring the side using only seven pitches. He followed up with four additional scoreless innings and a final line of 5.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 SO. Part of me wishes they had started Kelly but hey hindsight is 20/20. In other news, this may be the Giants new fifth starter, so get familiar with him.
Besides the starting pitching, on a night that the Giants were honoring one of the best offensive players to wear a Giants uniform, the team was unable to score a run against the Pirates and only mustered six hits and left four on-base. The biggest opportunity to score was in the third inning with Evan Longoria and at the plate Andrew McCutchen in scoring position and Buster Posey on first. The threat ended with the fly ball to right field.
Brandon Crawford also had a bad night, grounding into two double plays and going 0-4. Posey continued his singles-streak going 2-for-4 with another pair of singles.
In good news, the game was only two hours and eighteen minutes, but I guess games where there’s basically no offense always breeze by.
Postgame notes:
Both Posey and Bochy agree that Ty Blach got unlucky with one hard hit ball that led to the three-run home run
Posey and Bochy also seemed extremely pleased with Casey Kelly’s outing. Boch mentioned that he liked that Kelly is able to mix four pitches and be effective. He also mentioned that it is likely that Casey Kelly will be part of the rotation in the upcoming road trip.
Bochy pointed towards the offense, mentioning they need to get it going but also credited a really strong outing from Pirates starting pitcher, Trevor Williams, who has had some really strong outings in his last few starts.
Tomorrow is Dereck Rodriguez Day and the team seems like to like to win behind him so let’s see what happens.