Seattle Mariners Mike Ford (20) slides from third base scoring on a passed ball in front of San Francisco Giants pitcher Keaton Winn (67) in the top of the second inning at Oracle Park in San Francisco on Tue Jul 4, 2023 (AP News photo)

Seattle (42-42)     111 001 020. –   6. 13. 0

San Francisco (46-40)      000 000 000. –  0. 5.   1

Time: 2:20.  

Attendance: 37,395

Tuesday, July 4, 2023

By Lewis Rubman

SAN FRANCISCO– Beaten in four out of six games in Toronto and New York and battered by an all Sunday night flight from Gotham to the Golden Gate, the exhausted Giants didn’t have the strength to overcome Camilo Doval’s breakdown in the top of the ninth of Monday night’s roller coaster of a game against the Mariners, a game that the home town nine was on the verge of winning. But they came awfully close. Still, you had to wonder how the team would be able to recover before most of its members got a well earned respite for the all star game break.

On top of that, Thairo Estrada was placed on the 10 day injured list after suffering a fracture of his left hand in last night’s disaster.(Ironically, Doval will be the Giants’ representative for the ASG, and it will be played in Seattle).

A promising youngster named Keaton Winn seemed to be the answer. He has the name and the game time ERA to give the Giants a shot at turning what was a bad situation into a total loss. If Charles Victory Faust could do it for John McGraw’s New York Giants, maybe Winn could give Gabe Kapler’s west coast Giants a Hollywood ending to their slump. Faust would have been needed for this contest as the Giants were shutout by the magnificent pitching of Seattle Mariners (42-42) starter Logan Gilbert who went the distance for the 6-0 shutout over the San Francisco Giants (46-40) at Oracle Park.

Winn started for the exhausted San Francisco nine this afternoon, but neither he nor the team performed well. Winn lasted only four innings and gave up a run, earned, in each of the first three he pitched. He allowed six hits, one of them a home run, and a walk. He hit one Mariner with a pitch. 41 of his 67 pitches counted as strikes. He was the losing pitcher and left with a record of 0-2, 4.09.

Seattle sent their 2018 first round draft choice, Logan Gilbert, to the mound, counting on his strong right arm to help bring their season record up to .500. The Seattle chapter of the BBWAA voted him the team’s most valuable pitcher of 2022.

He hadn’t done particularly well in his previous start, taking the loss after pitching six innings against the Nationals on June 28 and allowing four runs on eight hits and two walks. He brought a season mark of 5-5, 4.19 with him when he toed the rubber in the bottom of the first.

When the game was over, the 26 year old had fully justified the confidence the Seattle scouting team and the BBWAA had in him. He pitched a complete game shutout, holding San Francisco to five hits. He struck out seven and didn’t issue a single base on balls, throwing 105 pitches, 73 for strikes. His record now stands at 6-5, 3.82.

The Mariners began attacking early. JP Crawford defied The Curse of the Lead Off Double, bouncing Winn’s third offering off the bricks in Levi’s Landing. Julio Rodríguez followed by beating out a hard hit grounder to third that moved Crawford up 90 feet.

Jarred Kelenic also hit a grounder, this one up the middle; Casey Schmitt made a great play to stop it and flip the ball to Brandon Crawford. But Rodríguez beat the relay to first, scoring Seattle’s Crawford. Winn recovered and struck out Teoscar Hérnandez; and Patrick Bailey and Schmitt executed a perfect strike ’em out, throw ’em out double play to limit the damage to a single tally.

The Mariners returned to the offense in their next turn at bat. Mike Ford led off with a solid single to right. Eugenio Suárez dumped a fly to right that fell close to, but not all that close to, the foul line. for a double that sent Ford to third. Tom Murphy swung at and missed at a 2-0 pitch. Home plate umpire Ramón de Jesús called it a strike, a call that was reversed when the replay showed it was catcher’s interference, an error that loaded the bases.

A wild pitch to Kolten Wong allowed Ford to cross the plate and Suárez to take third. After Wong fouled out to first, AJ Pollock grounded to Davis at third-2-6-2, who threw home The ensuing rundown involved a two men on third situation and a runner hit by a throw and ended with a 5-2-6-2 fielder’s choice that left runners on the corners, where they were stranded.

The Mariners presented a new angle of attack in their half of the third. Winn retired the first two batters he faced before Mike Ford sent his seventh home run of the year into the seats. It landed 354 feet deep and came off a 96mph four seamer.

After Winn pitched his only scoreless inning, Sean Manaea relieved him to start the Seattle fifth. He kept the M’s off the board for 1-2/3 innings, but two out singles by Pollock, BJ Crawford, and Rodríguez cost him a run in the sixth, his last inning. Jakob Junis replaced him and shut the Mariners down in the seventh. But not in the eighth.

He hit Wong with a pitch to open in the inning and then surrendered a home run to the number nine hitter, AJ Pollock, that travelled over the National Car Rental advertisement in left center field. That gave Pollock five dingers and 15 RBI for the year and the Mariners a 6-0 lead in the game.

The Giants went down without a whimper in the ninth. Gilbert sent them down in order to gain a complete gain victory.

The teams from the bay and the sound wind up their three game series, Wednesday, at 6:05. For San Francisco Alex Webb (5-2, 3.12) will duel with starter Tommy Milone (0-0 ERA 1.93) the Seattle hurler.