SAN FRANCISCO – In an effort to limit the length of games for the 2020 season, Major League Baseball implemented a new additional inning rule that places a runner at second base at the beginning of each inning after nine have been completed.
The rule prevented the Giants and Padres from playing a 17- or 18-inning adventure Thursday, but it did not make a tenth inning faster for reliever Tyler Rogers or manager Gabe Kapler.
The first six batters in the top of the tenth reached Rogers when the Padres exploded for a six-run rally that erased any hope that the Giants would secure their second consecutive victory. A tenth inning that lasted more than 30 minutes led to a disappointing 12-7 loss and concerns about Kapler’s knowledge of the rules.
After five hitters reached base to start the box, Kapler finally went to the mound to pull the Giants’ struggling reliever. However, Rogers was not allowed to leave the game.
Kapler’s trip to the middle of the diamond marked the team’s second visit to the mound, while Padres catcher Austin Hedges was at the plate when pitching coach Andrew Bailey had already gone out to see Rogers. Under MLB rules, a pitcher must remain in the game if he receives two visits to the mound during the same plate appearance, so Rogers was caught watching Hedges play in a run in an attempt to pick the failed fielder from the catcher Tyler Heineman.
“That was just a mental mistake on my part,” admitted Kapler. “I’ve been in the game for a long time and only had a lapse in memory.”
The execution of the Giants tenth inning was disastrous and brought to mind two memorable managerial mistakes.
The first is one that has haunted Kapler throughout his career. During his first series as manager of the Philadelphia Phillies in 2018, Kapler called on the bullpen to bring in left-hander Hoby Milner. Milner was unaware that he was expected to report to the mound, as he hadn’t even released a warm-up pitch, prompting Phillies fans to wonder if Kapler knew how to handle his bullpen.
The second is a mistake that former Dodgers manager Don Mattingly made in Los Angeles that helped Bruce Bochy conquer the hearts of Giants fans. In July 2010, Bochy surprised Mattingly by leaving the mound for a visit before returning to speak to reliever Jonathan Broxton.
At that time, the second visit to the mound required the Dodgers to replace Broxton and turn the game over to George Sherrill, who promptly doubled Andrés Torres in a game the Giants won 7-5.
The move helped draw Bochy to Giants fans and gave them a deeper appreciation for his focus on detail. His bullpen management in the posttasks 2010, 2012 and 2014 only helped his cause.
Kapler’s first clear decision-making error came at a time when the game was already out of reach and when it would have already made sense to remove Rogers from the game. The fact that Rogers had to face an additional batter didn’t help the pitcher’s cause or influence Thursday’s result, but it served as a reminder that Kapler has a lot to prove when it comes to the finer details of his job. .
“I think the most important thing is that I am only the owner and I take responsibility for it and I don’t make the same mistake twice,” Kapler said.
The most difficult aspect of Thursday’s game for the Giants was not that the Padres mounted a six-race rally, but the fact after the Giants returned from a sizable deficit for the second straight night.
One night after the four entered the seventh inning, the Giants faced a five-run deficit as the Padres gained an early lead against Kevin Gausman, Caleb Baragar and Sam Coonrod.
Once again, it was outfielder Mike Yastrzemski who lit a rally as he drew an initial walk to open the bottom of the seventh against Padres right-hander Luis Perdomo. A single from Alex Dickerson and a double from Donovan Solano forced the Padres to turn to one of their top free-agent signers and a familiar face inside Oracle Park, left-hander Drew Pomeranz.
The former starter who was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers on the 2019 trade deadline struck out the three batters he faced in an easy save in Tuesday’s game, but Pomeranz struggled with his command Thursday and allowed a sacrifice flight. designated hitter Wilmer Flores and an RBI, single to pinch hitter Austin Slater, which led the Giants to two.
An extended seventh inning was the best possible scenario for the Giants because it allowed the top of the order to return to the plate at the eighth opportunity to hit the Padres’ bullpen.
Steven Duggar, who was promoted from the Giants’ alternate camp on Thursday to take the place of fighter Jaylin Davis, led the eighth inning against Emilio Pagán and beat slow ground to the left side of the infield for his first hit of the season. . Duggar ran down the line at 29 feet per second, a clip considered to be elite in the major leagues, to set the table for Yastrzemski.
The Giants’ nascent start did not fire another shot at the moon at McCovey Cove, but it did plant a flyball on the warning court at Triples Alley and ran to third base to represent the tie run.
The triple gave Yastrzemski his eleventh hit of the season in the main league and allowed Donovan Solano to get his ninth best RBI of the year in the National League with a sacrifice flying to right field to tie the game.
The Giants’ last rally was made possible by the way their batters battled Padres starter Dinelson Lamet, who has some of the best raw talent of any pitcher the Giants will face this season.
With a four-seam fastball that peaked at 98.6 miles per hour on Thursday and an elimination slider that could be one of the best balls in the National League, Lamet made the Giants guess wrong all night.
In five one-run innings of a ball, Lamet threw 47 sliders and induced 22 hits from the Giants’ hitters. The Giants put just three of Lamet’s sliders into play, going through 11, hitting eight foul balls and taking another eight for punches.
“After the first turn at bat I felt like I was seeing the ball pretty well,” Belt said. “The starter was a little tough because his slider did a lot of different things and it was difficult to measure it and get a good pass.”
The only problem Lamet faced against the Giants was a large pitch count, as he needed 91 pitches to finish five innings, including 22 in a high-stress background of the fifth in the defensive game of the night.
In his 2020 debut, third baseman Evan Longoria had a chance to ruin an exceptional night for Lamet, but Padres center fielder Trent Grisham stole the opportunity. With the bases loaded and one out, Longoria drove a 97 mph ball into Triples Alley that could have cleared the bases if it landed on the grass in the outfield.
Grisham stepped into the alley in right center field and made a spectacular diving catch on a sacrifice fly, but the second-year outfielder could have kept the Giants off the board with a solid relay pitch to first base. Brandon Belt, who started the at-bat at first after walking, had already run around second base by the time Grisham rose up in the air to make the play, forcing Belt to redirect to first base while making sure of touching second base. way back.
The wandering pitches of Grisham and Fernando Tatis, Jr. prevented Belt from doubling first in a play that recalled Rubén Rivera’s historic baserunning mistake on May 27, 2003 against the Diamondbacks that prompted Giants announcer Jon Miller to testify. Rivera’s mistake as “the worst baserunning in the history of the game.”
Immediately after Lamet escaped the jam, the Padres counted a couple of runs in the sixth on a two-run homer by second baseman Jurickson Profar against Giants rookie Caleb Baragar.
