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SAN DIEGO — Nothing else mattered. Not the score. Not the record. Not the standings. Not the offensive failures. Not the defensive inefficiencies. Not all the recent losses that have piled up.
In the scary moments after Giants pitcher Landen Roupp collapsed on the Petco Park turf with a knee injury Wednesday night, baseball no longer was at the forefront. Oh, the game went on. Nine innings were completed. There was an outcome. There were cheers by Padres fans when their team concluded its 8-1 victory.
But for the Giants, whose lost season keeps getting worse, the main storyline was Roupp, who tumbled awkwardly off the mound after taking a sharp Ramón Laureano liner off the back of his right thigh in the third inning. Because of the fluky way that he fell, his left leg unnaturally twisted and buckled.
The initial diagnosis was a sprained left knee, but an MRI scheduled for Thursday in the Bay Area will provide more details of the damage.
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“Hopefully it’s nothing terrible,” shortstop Willy Adames said. “I know it’s still going to be bad whatever it is.”
Roupp, the 26-year-old North Carolinian who was pitching his second game since coming back from an elbow injury, clearly was in extreme pain. Trainer Dave Groeschner, who has been around the game long enough to realize this was nothing ordinary, rushed from the dugout and called for a medical cart.
Roupp mostly was expressionless, naturally. He was in shock. He was frustrated. He was in pain. He said aloud that he felt something wrong in his knee. It was an unlucky set of circumstances for someone who won the final rotation spot in spring training over Hayden Birdsong and Kyle Harrison and then pitched well enough this summer to become the third-best starter behind All-Stars Logan Webb and Robbie Ray, sporting a 3.11 ERA through July. After missing three weeks with the elbow injury, he was hoping to finish the season strong to put himself in position to remain a force in next year’s rotation.
And now this.
“It’s super sad,” Adames said. “It’s such an unfortunate moment, especially for him but also for the team, too. He’s been doing really good for us all year long. He just came back, now this happened. It’s really sad.”
Webb said, “I’m just hoping he’s OK. That’s really all that matters right now. Hopefully it’s nothing serious and we see him back this year. Yeah, it sucks. Landen’s been throwing the ball really well.”
Through it all, Roupp was trying to be optimistic, “You know how he is,” manager Bob Melvin said. “He said, ‘I’m going to be fine.’ Just the way he is with everything.”
Roupp had surrendered home runs to Gavin Sheets and Manny Machado, falling behind 3-0, and issued a one-out walk in the third inning before Laureano came to the plate. The right-hander threw a 92-mile per hour sinker, and Laureano smoked it 95.7 mph off the bat, a liner that Roupp had no chance to avoid.
Way off balance, Roupp fell to the ground. He pulled himself up momentarily, hopping on his right leg, but fell again because the left leg couldn’t support him. As he sat holding the injured knee, Groeschner tried to stabilize him and comfort him. Roupp was able to limp to the cart, accompanied by two trainers. As the cart exited the scene, Groeschner sat behind him with a hand over his shoulder.
“It’s another thing where you go, ‘Man, that could happen, too?’ ” Adames said. “We just got him back. It was a really good moment for him to come back and rejoin the team and help us be better. And then that happened. It feels like we can’t catch a break.”
Lefty Joey Lucchesi replaced Roupp and immediately coughed up a three-run homer to Sheets, making it 6-0. So Roupp was charged with five runs in 2 ⅓ innings, his ERA soaring to 3.80. The Padres hit four homers in all, and right fielder Fernando Tatís Jr. spectacularly swiped a homer from Rafael Devers. The Giants’ run for the day came courtesy of San Diego native Casey Schmitt, who homered off JP Sears.
Not only are the Giants flopping on the field, going 9-21 since the All-Star break, but their pitching has become extremely thin. Currently, their fourth starter is Kai-Wei Teng, and without Roupp, there’s no fifth starter. Promoting Blade Tidwell from Triple-A Sacramento would have been an easy call, but he has a shoulder ailment and will have an MRI Thursday. Birdsong walked five batters in his latest Sacramento start, so Carson Whisenhunt and Trevor McDonald are decent options to replace Roupp.
“We’re filtering through it right now, what we need here coming up,” Melvin said. “Obviously, the bullpen is taxed a little, too. We’re thinking about what the need here is in the short term and the long term.”