Giants bats go quiet, drop opening series with Mariners

The San Francisco Giants and the Seattle Mariners wrapped up the opening series to the 2021 season after Saturday’s rubber match. The Giants gave the starting nod to rookie Logan Webb, who faced off against Mariners righty Chris Flexen.

Webb had a decent outing all things considered. He ran into trouble multiple times throughout his five-plus innings pitched, but kept his team within striking distance. Offensively, the Giants bats went quiet, with only Donovan Solano (2-for-4) as the lone bright spot Saturday night in a 4-0 loss.

This story will be updated with quotes and post-game material from the Giants clubhouse at Oracle Park.

Flexen (1-0, 0.00 ERA) set the Giants (1-2) down in order in the top of the first inning. Webb (L, 0-1, 5.06 ERA) faced pressure immediately in the bottom half of the inning after a leadoff double by Mitch Haniger. Two batters later, Kyle Seager dropped an infield single down the third base line, giving the Mariners (2-1) runners at first and third. With the help of a couple of big strikeouts, Webb escaped his first jam of the season.

This was an encouraging sign for Webb, because last season he had issues working his way out of jams, oftentimes surrendering runs that sank his chances of going deep into games. That one inning seemed to doom him each time he was roughed up in an outing. No sign of that in the first inning.

The Mariners struck first in the bottom of the third inning. Ty France lined a solo home run over the left center field wall to give the Mariners a 1-0 lead against Webb and the Giants.

Reminiscent of the first inning, Webb surrendered a leadoff double to begin the bottom of the fourth. Taylor Trammell followed with a double, scoring the runner from second. The next batter, Dylan Moore, was the third straight Mariners hitter to double off Webb in the bottom of the fourth, scoring yet another run.

Fortunately for Webb, a double play ball followed by a ground out allowed him to escape the jam. The Mariners scratched across two runs, extending their lead to 3-0 through four innings.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Webb ran into trouble again. Two walks gave the Mariners a runner in scoring position with one out, forcing Webb out of the game.

Webb’s final line: 5-1/3 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 3 BBs, 5 Ks, 97 pitches.

Matt Wisler replaced Webb out of the bullpen, striking out the final two batters to escape the jam.

In his first appearance since recovering from Tommy John surgery, Giants reliever Reyes Moronta entered in the bottom of the seventh inning. A leadoff home run off the bat of Haniger extended the Mariners lead to 4-0. The Giants were down to their final six outs, with seemingly no answer offensively.

A quiet eighth inning was followed by a quiet ninth inning, and just like that, the Giants’ offense went quietly into the night. After two games where the offense carried the team, they were unable to scratch across a run in the rubber match Saturday night.

Up Next

Following the series loss to the Mariners to begin the 2021 season, the Giants will have Sunday off before starting a series with the San Diego Padres (3-0) Monday. Anthony DeSclafani will face off against Padres lefty Adrian Morejon.

Taylor Wirth is SFBay’s San Francisco Giants beat writer. Follow @SFBay and @WirthTM on Twitter and at SFBay.ca for full coverage of Giants baseball.