SAN DIEGO — The Giants waited 30 games to finally play a National League West foe but took less than 30 minutes to find themselves in a 3-0 hole.
After passing test after test in the season’s first month to show the baseball world they’re legitimate, the Giants floundered in their first matchup against one of their division’s powers, losing 7-4 to San Diego Tuesday night.
Logan Webb gave up nine hits in five innings and was done after 79 pitches, and not even a couple of torpedo bats could save the Giants in a game that celebrated Padres legend Tony Gwynn and drew 47,345, the second-largest crowd in Petco Park history. It was the Padres’ 15th sellout of the season.
“I feel like they got lucky today against Webby,” said Giants shortstop Willy Adames, who homered and doubled. “He was very unlucky; they got a lot of bloopers to go their way. Those days are going to happen.”
In what’s clearly the deepest division in the majors, the 19-11 Giants are a half-game atop the 18-11 Padres ahead of Wednesday’s matinee. The Dodgers lead the division, barely, at 20-10.
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Not that the standings matter a whole lot in late April, but for the Giants, a team that was universally picked to finish fourth in the NL West, hanging with the Padres and Dodgers at this juncture is an early-season success story.
The Giants had the majors’ top record in spring training and carried the momentum into the season, the first of the Buster Posey administration. One of their signature abilities has been overcoming deficits as their 10 comeback wins rank second in the majors, trailing only the Dodgers.
The Giants valiantly tried for No. 11. Trailing by four runs, they managed a three-run rally in the sixth inning. Adames doubled, Jung Hoo Lee singled, and two outs later, LaMonte Wade Jr., doubled the runners home.
However, with Webb out of the game, Randy Rodriguez yielded a two-run homer to Xander Bogaerts in the seventh, and the Giants now need to win Wednesday’s series finale to avoid losing just their third series of the season.
“We’re not going to come back every time, unfortunately,” Adames said.
The Giants’ cause wasn’t helped by right-handed sluggers Matt Chapman and Wilmer Flores, the No. 4 and No. 5 hitters, who combined to go 0-for-8 with seven strikeouts. The Giants whiffed 14 times in all against Nick Pivetta, who’s 5-1 with a 1.78 ERA, and four relievers.
The best news for the Giants out of the series opener was the quality of Adames’ at-bats. The $182 million shortstop brought an anemic .202 batting average into the game with just five of his 23 hits going for extra bases. He had just one home run.
He homered to right-center and doubled to left-center, a promising sign for the perennially slow starter whose bat historically heats up with the weather.
“When I’m doing well, I hit the fastball the other way,” Adames said, referencing his fourth-inning homer. “Obviously, it’s not a feeling that I’ve had since the season started, but it felt great today to hit the fastball that way. It gives me confidence.”
For the first time this season, the Giants had two hitters using torpedo bats, courtesy of Tyler Fitzgerald, who received two of the new-styled bats from Louisville Slugger last week. He debuted one of them Friday, going 0-for-3, then sat out the weekend with a chest bruise.
On Tuesday, he was back in the lineup and let Patrick Bailey use one of them. They were the 8-9 hitters in the lineup, and in the fifth inning, they hit back-to-back, two-out singles with Bailey sending a liner to right and Fitzgerald a fly down the line in left. But they were stranded when Mike Yastrzemski struck out.
Fitzgerald said he’ll continue swinging his torpedo.
“I don’t want people to think the bat is affecting my performance,” he said before the game. “I almost didn’t use it that one day because it just felt there was a little pressure. I was the first one to get it, and people were going to make up their minds based on what I did, so I was trying to be low-key about it. Yeah, I’m going to keep using it.”
While the Padres got an ample share of soft hits off Webb, nothing was soft about Manny Machado’s contact. Webb retired his first two batters, but Machado hit a 107.4 mph single, the first of five straight Padres baserunners.
Webb walked the next batter, which he called “unacceptable,” and gave up three straight hits including Bogaerts’ RBI single and Jose Iglesias’ two-run single, both hit at 86 mph. Exit velocity on a few other hits were below 80 mph – 95 mph is considered hard hit. Machado’s 99.8 mph single capped a two-run rally in the fourth.
“There was a lot of adrenaline going into it,” Webb said. “That’s why it was disappointing the way the first inning went. I got two quick outs, Manny got that base hit the other way, and I think the walk ruined the inning from there on out. There are games you look back on, you think, man, I wish I didn’t throw that pitch. Honestly tonight, I don’t think there were many pitches I would take back. It’s kind of the way the ball fell.”
Webb added, “I’m probably not one to complain. I get a lot of hard-hit balls right at people.”
Unlike the old days when games inside the division were crammed into the season’s first month, the Giants finally played an NL West opponent on the penultimate day of April. They don’t play the rival Dodgers until June.
Regardless of this series’ outcome, the Giants will feel good heading home for a four-game set against lowly Colorado knowing they’ll enter May as one of the game’s top teams.
“I think people are starting to see our identity, that we’re not going to back up from anybody,” Adames said. “We’re going to battle. We’re going to come here and come everywhere and fight. Like I said in spring training, we’re in a better position than people think we are, and I’ll say it again today because I know the talent and confidence we have here.”