The punishment continues

We’ve seen Drew Gilbert a lot these past couple of weeks.

We’ve seen him like this,

and like this,

and like this,

but never like this.

A subdued Drew… A sad Chilly Goo Bear…after a double??? That can’t be good.

It’s not. It’s exactly what you think it is. The Giants third weekend series of the year against the Los Angeles Dodgers played out like the previous two. A Friday night high followed by a Saturday crash and Sunday burn.

Robbie Ray’s mishandling of the 10-2 rubber match felt a bit like deja vu. The game fell apart for the Giants in nearly the same way and at the same time as it did for Logan Webb yesterday. Down a run in the 5th, the first three LA hitters reached base against Ray, and an RBI double from Freddie Freeman sent him packing without an out to his name and frustrations that could fill a suitcase.

The southpaw had already thrown 100 pitches. His left arm hung off his shoulder like a lace curtain in front of a window, susceptible to the slightest September breeze.

Much like Webb, Ray struggled for control. He couldn’t command the zone or command counts. Early at-bats wore on. Runners reached base at an exhausting and unmanageable clip. Ray allowed 4 walks (his 71 BBs lead the NL) in 4+ innings on top of giving up six hits on a lot of pitches over the heart of the plate. It felt like extra innings, almost a given that LA would start the inning with a man on. In the 2nd, Ray walked both Miguel Rojas and Alex Call to load the bases, allowing a deep fly ball from Enrique Hernandez to score LA’s first run. Two unspectacular balls in play cashed in another run in the 3rd thanks in part to two lead-off singles. No, the Dodgers didn’t light up the scoreboard in the early innings, but they set the tone. They trusted the runs would come eventually if they bided their time and kept their foot on the gas.

The Giants answered somewhat with a scratch score of their own in the 2nd. Jung Hoo Lee reached base with a HBP, took third on a wild pitch and scored on a sac fly. But the offense just couldn’t keep up the pressure against Tyler Glasnow like the Dodgers could against Ray. Both starters have similar styles: Big arms that rely on strikeouts with the price of high pitch counts and a decent amount of walks. Trouble can often be of their own making. Glasnow handed out five gifts of 90 feet (4 BB and a HBP) in the first three frames, but mitigated the potential damage by giving up just one hit — a single from Wilmer Flores. San Francisco’s next hit off Glasnow wouldn’t come until the 7th.

The knocks peppered amongst the walks did Ray in. He ran out of fingers trying to fill up all the holes forming in the dam, and it all broke open in the 5th. With Ray watching from the dugout, Joel Peguero took over and walked Tommy Edman. Michael Conforto took advantage of a drawn in infield with a slow roller past Casey Schmitt at second to plate two more. A PitchCom problem caused the rookie to step off the mound without calling for time, allowing another run to score. And the runs just kept coming, against Spencer Bivens, against JT Brubaker, against Carson Seymour, ending the series with another double-digit run total.

It’s clear Robbie Ray is feeling the effects of a first full season since 2022. He’s a husk of his April self. He’s given up 20 earned runs over his last five starts. His September ERA over three games and 13.2 innings is at 7.24. All he’s good for is a handful of vintage moments in a start. A couple of sparks that never light. He had two specific moments at least in Sunday’s start, both coming against Shohei Ohtani.

Ray fanned Ohtani with a 3-2 fastball right at his hands to start the 1st. With two outs in the 2nd, he lost number 9 hitter Ben Redvordt to the base-on-balls, setting up an ill-advised bases-loaded showdown with Shohei. The game looked to be an aluminum can and Ohtani a can-opener at that moment, but Ray battled through him with another 95 MPH fastball.

He faced Shohei three times on the day, twice with at least one runner in scoring position, and collected two strikeouts. All grand and dandy, all great clips for the career highlight reel — but Ray’s best stuff was spent on one man. Ohtani is a black hole, sucking all the energy of the opponent’s universe towards him. Even if he has an unproductive day, the attention he draws only benefits the guys around him. Hitting behind him, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Teoscar Hernandez had ten hits between them that felt like ten hits each. Conforto went 3-for-3 with 3 runs batted-in. As a team, the Dodgers bagged 17 hits yesterday and got 18 more today with 23 runs scored, and only one baseball left the park.

A pretty good vision of hell: an endless recurring loop of Dodgers hitters reaching base. One replacing another, each turning to their dugout and noodling their body like one of those inflatable tube men you see outside of a car wash.

For fans, those brief Shohei whiffs were the only palatable moments of a crappy stretch of baseball. A weekend of walks and wild pitches and balks and hit batters and just missed flyballs…that grand slam feels so long ago.

Oof is the word. Best to just not read too much into, to forget it all — kind of like how Drew Gilbert forgot to touch first base. Just move on.

0 Comments