SEATTLE — Hopes for a fresh start in the second half of the season quickly faded for the Giants.
A promising conclusion to the first half left the Giants with positive momentum heading into the All-Star break. Their initial victory upon returning had even inspired some optimism for the games ahead.
However, reality set in over the weekend, culminating in consecutive losses and a series defeat to the Mariners, a team they had previously dominated just days earlier.
In Sunday’s 6-3 loss, Robbie Ray was pulled out by the fifth inning, Casey Schmitt’s defensive slips contributed to the team’s woes, and Tony Vitello’s controversial management decision led to Luke Raley hitting a decisive pinch-hit home run.
The Mariners, typically struggling against left-handed pitchers, managed a comeback despite Schmitt’s errors, disrupting an otherwise effective strategy with southpaws Ray and Sam Hentges on the mound.
Everyone enjoying an immaculate summer afternoon at T-Mobile Park could have predicted that Seattle would sub in Raley or Dominic Canzone, two righty mashers with huge platoon splits, once the Giants went in the other direction with their pitching assignments.
Presumably that includes Vitello, who called on Adrian Houser to begin the sixth inning nonetheless. All 14 of Raley’s home runs entering the game had come against right-handed pitchers, and it took only two pitches for that number to increase to 15.
Houser, one of the majors’ most homer-prone pitchers, took over a tied ballgame and served up a pair of home runs in a matter of two innings that put it out of reach for the Giants.
He recorded one hard out, then left a changeup over the middle of the plate that Raley smashed over the 380-foot sign in right-center field. Cole Young, who hit the go-ahead homer the previous evening, blew the game open with a two-run shot to right the following inning.
Bryce Eldridge opened the scoring in the first inning with his second home run of the series — his 10th of the season — to straightaway center, and Heliot Ramos drove in Schmitt to give Ray a 2-0 lead when he toed the rubber for the first time.
Seattle tied the score at 2 in the fourth with a pair of unearned runs, but the Giants immediately responded to retake a 3-2 advantage in the top half of the fifth when Luis Arraez doubled home Willy Adames, who drew a leadoff walk and was sacrificed into scoring position.
But just as it did less than 24 hours earlier, the lead evaporated, and so did any positive momentum the Giants had built before boarding their charter flight to Kansas City.
What it means
Ray’s shortest outing since May came at a poor time, with only two more turns through the rotation to go until the Aug. 3 trade deadline, when he should be one of the top arms available.
He was at only 86 pitches when Vitello lifted him for Hentges, but he had surrendered his sixth and seven hits of the game to begin the fifth, prompting the change.
Who’s hot
Eldridge spent his All-Star break at Disneyland, but he might think Seattle is the happiest place on earth after hitting at the typically unfriendly T-Mobile Park for the first time.
The rookie slugger gave the Giants their first runs of the second half with a homer in Friday’s 7-0 win, reached base three times with a pair of hits in Saturday’s 4-3 loss and bested the marine layer again in his first at-bat Sunday afternoon against Logan Gilbert.
Eldridge is riding a modest five-game hitting streak and has hit safely in six of his past seven games, with three homers and a 1.172 OPS over that stretch.
Who’s not
Two things you haven’t seen much of from Arraez: errors and strikeouts.
That is to say, it’s been an uncharacteristic start to the second half for the Giants second baseman. Arraez kept on hitting, with one apiece in all three games of the series, but flubbed a grounder for only his fifth error Saturday and, a day later, did something even more uncommon.
Gilbert got him to go down swinging in both of his first two trips to the plate. The contact artist had only struck out 16 times this season; it had been more than two years since he last struck out multiple times in one game — July 3, 2024.
Of course, Arraez wasn’t going to be held quiet for long, and he got his revenge in his third at-bat, lining a double down the left field line that gave the Giants a 3-2 lead.
It was a good reminder that one or two at-bats won’t have any impact on how teams view him going into the trade deadline, when he is widely expected to be on the move.
Up next
The Giants jet to Kansas City, where they begin a series against what should be an angry Royals team Monday night. The home team ought to be out for vengeance after they were handed a 19-2 loss by the Padres while the Giants were closing out their series in Seattle.