Swooning Giants swept by White Sox, have now dropped 10 of last 13

When it’s going rough, it’s going rough. The San Francisco Giants found that out once again with their bats falling silent as the Chicago White Sox swept them with a 13-4 victory on Sunday at Oracle Park. 

The Giants haven’t been swept by the White Sox since May 2008, and they’ve now lost 10 of their last 13 games. In the process, they’ve been held to six runs in their last 39 innings.

Giants manager Gabe Kapler says the team is working through an issue around lack of energy:

This is a group that – as individuals and collectively – have experienced adversity before. This is not new. It’s a challenge that I think we all take very seriously but just not gonna get bent out of shape and get super low because we have all individually and collectively experienced adversity before. This is part of baseball. Sometimes everything goes really, really well for long stretches of time and sometimes you play shitty baseball for a long stretch of time, which has happened here, but it’s not breaking us.”

Thanks to Chicago All-Star Lucas Giolito, Giants bats remained ice cold and struggled to touch the veteran right-hander over six innings. San Francisco struck out four straight times against him to open up the game. After Wilmer Flores walked, Giolito struck out two more – five of the initial six all on changeups.

Flores’ walk was the only offensive achievement – nothing to call home about – until the fourth inning when Joc Pederson doinked a leadoff bloop single to center field that went off the outreached glove of Chicago shortstop Tim Anderson. It looked like a possible scoring opportunity until Giolito induced two popouts. Flores was next, drawing his second walk, but Mike Yastrzemski ended any further developments with a groundout.

On Giolito’s ability to keep the Giants out of the run column early on, Kapler said:

Giolito pitched a good game. His changeup was working really well. We probably chased a few changeups that we could have taken. We didn’t have our best at-bats. He had really good stuff. The combination of those two things.”

San Francisco finally showed life in the sixth when Austin Slater bounced a single up the middle to leadoff the inning and set the table for Pederson. Known for his power from the left side, Pederson crushed a deep drive into right-center field, a ball that surely would’ve left the 29 other ballparks with ease, but stayed in the park and banged off the bricks for a double to score Slater and make it 6-1.

Pederson is the only Giants position player to advance to Phase 2 of the All-Star voting ballot and for good reason. He’s been a key pillar of the San Francisco offense, entering Sunday with a team-leading 154 wRC+ (min. 220 PA). The Palo Alto-raised left fielder already has 17 homers. The Giants are 11-3 when he hits them and 23-29 when he doesn’t, an example of his catalyst tendencies. 

Heading into the game, Pederson was tied for sixth in the National League in homers, first in at-bats per homer (11.76), first in average exit velocity (94.5 mph), second in hard hit percentage (54.9 percent), fourth in OPS (.922, min 180 PA) and third in slugging percentage (.575, min 180 PA). 

The Giants had a few big hits in the ninth inning. Wilmer Flores drove in a run with an RBI double into the left field corner, Yastrzemski hammered a fastball off the wall in right for an RBI double of his own, and Darin Ruf skied a double to straightaway center field for the third RBI double of the inning to make it 13-4.

The Giants didn’t have a traditional starting pitcher lined up for Sunday’s game due to the injury to Anthony DeSclafani, so they rolled with a bullpen game out of the gates. John Brebbia received the nod to start, throwing a scoreless opening frame. Southpaw Jarlin Garcia followed up with a perfect 1-2-3 second inning of his own.

Everything more or less fell apart right after that.

The third inning included a series of bad events. Sean Hjelle, the 6-foot-11 rookie right-hander just recalled to the big leagues before the game, entered and yielded a leadoff single to Josh Harrison. 

After striking out catcher Seby Zavala, Hjelle got Anderson to roll into what appeared to be a tailor-made, inning-ending double play ball to shortstop. Donovan Walton dropped to a knee, fielded the ball and threw wildly to second. The ball pinballed down the right field line and it put Chicago’s baserunners at second and third.

On the tough stretch, Walton said:

You just got to get better. It’s something that we take pride in. I know we are really good at just fixing the small things moving forward at this spot in the season. It’s gonna get better coming out the other side.

Hjelle struck out first baseman Andrew Vaughn, but the effects of the error were alive and well when center fielder Luis Robert blooped a broken bat flare into right field to score both runs and make it 2-0.

It was a costly mistake and easily defined the Giants defense this season in a nutshell: costing the club a few runs each game and throwing a wrench into any close game they play. 

Hjelle was responsible for the bulk innings and was knocked around a bit. He finished with two innings pitched, eight hits and four earned runs allowed, and three strikeouts. 

Hjelle tried throwing into the fifth inning, but stumbled as the White Sox singled three straight times against him. Kapler made the trip to the mound, grabbing the lefty Sam Long. Naturally, Long allowed a bases-loaded double to Gavin Sheets to score all three runs to break the game open at 6-0. 

Zavala had a big game for the White Sox, going 3-for-5 with an RBI single in the fourth, an RBI double in the eighth and another RBI double in the ninth off position player Austin Wynns to make it 12-1.

Up Next

The Giants will head to the desert to take on the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday at Chase Field. Carlos Rodon (7-4, 2.62 ERA) will look to continue his success against veteran lefty and former Giants World Series MVP Madison Bumgarner (3-8, 3.63 ERA). First pitch is 3:10 p.m.

Notes

Anthony DeSclafani will undergo surgery on his right ankle next week, Kapler told reporters ahead of Sunday’s game. The injury has haunted the San Francisco right-hander since the end of last season and hasn’t improved. It’s likely he misses the rest of the season. … Infielder Thairo Estrada was placed on the Covid injured list after a second straight day of feeling ill. He’s been dealing with a sore throat and a headache, but hasn’t yet tested positive for the virus. First baseman Yermin Mercedes has been called up from Triple-A. … Hjelle was recalled for Sunday’s game and infielder Jason Vosler returns to Triple-A. … The Giants struggled to get production out of their top catching prospect, Joey Bart, in the 36 games he appeared in at the big league level. The 25-year-old rookie was hitting well below the Mendoza line at .156 and was sporting a MLB-worst 45.4 percent strikeout rate (min. 100 plate appearances). He was demoted to Triple-A Sacramento on June 8, but not before a brief time away from the game to revamp his mind and focus on mechanical adjustment. In seven games since returning to the minors, Bart appears to have lowered his hands at the plate and the results are beginning to show improvements – a .748 OPS in 31 plate appearances, including a booming 484-foot homer on Saturday night.