TL;DR: A gritty performance from Merrill Kelly couldn’t hold up to a hibernating offense and some late miscues from his teammates.
We have now entered a period full of hypotheticals when nearly every result is put under further inspection as the Trade Deadline is less than a month away. Every game result seems more consequential and even individual performances take on added weight as general managers around the league take note of needs and ways to address them. Unsurprisingly, Mike Hazen has repeatedly said that he wants to “responsibly” add to the team at the deadline, but reiterated that the team has to be in a position to make that decision easier. They’ve unfortunately kept themselves in neutral however as they lost another winnable game against a team ahead of them in the Wild Card standings. Those kinds of opportunities are limited and have to be taken advantage of whenever they appear.
On a night when Merrill Kelly did not have his best command, it was commendable to see him battle through that adversity and settle in after a rocky start to give the team and bullpen some length. The Giants came out aggressive and wasted no time taking the lead as Mike Yasztremski blasted the second pitch of the game just over Jake McCarthy’s outstretched glove for his eighth homer of the season. They weren’t done either as a walk to Wilmer Flores would come in to score on a Jung Hoo Lee triple that McCarthy couldn’t quite catch up to. It was clear from the start that Kelly didn’t have his best stuff tonight, walking an uncharacteristic three batters on his six innings of work and leaning on his changeup when his fastball failed to have the kind life he needed. However, after the first inning, Kelly found some rhythm and worked around traffic in all but one clean inning. The Giants’ offense tacked one additional run in Kelly’s penultimate inning on a leadoff double to Brett Wisely and an RBI single from newly-acquired Rafael Devers.
Meanwhile, Landen Roupp continued a hot streak of pitching, extending his scoreless streak to 15.1 IP before Alek Thomas led off the fifth with a solo shot to get the team on the board. That shot seemingly unlocked something for Roupp as he followed up the solo shot by loading the bases on a pair of walks and a single to newly-minted All-Star Ketel Marte that ended his night. Sadly, the team once again failed to find the big hit as they managed just one additional run from a bases loaded, no outs situation on a sac fly from Josh Naylor. It was by far the team’s best scoring opportunity on the night – part of a 2-for-12 with runners in scoring position effort. Conversely, the Giants took advantage of their late scoring chances with a pair of RBI-singles in the visiting half of the eight from Patrick Bailey and Brett Wisely that opened up a three-run lead.
To their credit, the D-Backs quickly responded in the home half of the eighth and took advantage of a sloppy play from Tyler Fitzgerald that allowed Lourdes Gurriel Jr to reach second base. McCarthy then slapped a single right up the middle to plate Gurriel to bring the team within two runs. But entering the ninth inning, the team was once again looking for an improbable comeback and the top of the lineup quickly delivered. Perdomo laced a leadoff single into left ahead of Marte who absolutely demolished a hanging slider into the right field bleachers to tie the game. For a brief moment, it looked like Marte had yet another signature moment on a special night when he was selected to be an All-Star starter for just the third time in his career. But alas, Shelby Miller entered for the 10th and gave up the Giants’ sixth and final run of the game before the D-Backs went quietly into the Sonoran Desert.
This team is frustratingly, impossibly, entertainingly inconsistent. It’s as if every night they undergo some kind of metamorphosis and awake the next day a slightly different team. As a fan, you’re left wondering which team will appear: the one that ranks near the top of the league for homers, the one that features average defense and a mental error on a seemingly nightly basis, or the team that ranks near the top in high leverage situations? On some nights, you may even get some combination of all three. Now obviously, every team is inconsistent to some degree. It’s impossible to be perfectly consistent on a nightly basis, and this team has a bevy of readymade excuses sitting on the IL for some of that inconsistency, but it doesn’t explain all of it. And ultimately, their inconsistency may be exactly why they find themselves sitting at home when October rolls around.
