San Francisco Giants’ Casey Schmitt reacts after hitting an RBI double against the Oakland Athletics during the second inning at Oracle Park in San Francisco on Wed Jul 26, 2023 (AP News photo)

Giants in Weekend Match-Up With Red Sox

By Barbara Mason

Thursday, the San Francisco Giants had a long overdue day off. They finally came home after a lengthy road trip on Monday afternoon. Monday morning they played a makeup game from April 16 taking on the Detroit Tigers. They ended up losing that game, their sixth loss in a row. The Giants were not getting the hits. You could blame the slump on road fatigue but San Francisco just wasn’t getting the job done.

Tuesday and Wednesday night they seemed to snap out of it winning a come-from-behind game against the Oakland A’s 3-2 in the ninth inning on Tuesday. The Giants won game two of that short series, on Wednesday night 8-3. Thursday they have some well-deserved time off before taking on the Boston Red Sox this weekend in a three game series.

The Giants and the Red Sox have nearly identical season records and this series should be a good one. The Giants record is 56-47 and the Red Sox have a 55-47 record. The Giants are currently in second place behind the Dodgers in the NL West. The Red Sox are in fourth place in the tough AL East.

Starting pitchers for the two teams have been announced as Logan Webb for the Giants with an 8-8 win/loss record and a 3.48 ERA and Kutter Crawford with a 4-5 win/loss record, and a 4.04 ERA. Webb had a very tough outing last Saturday against the Washington Nationals in the 10-1 loss going 1.1 innings and giving up five hits and six runs. He will certainly be looking for an improved game in this first game of the series.

San Francisco will need the continued stellar play of Wilmer Flores who was one of the saving graces of the recent losses. Joc Pederson and J.D. Davis also contributed in this recent road trip. The Giants really came to life in game two against the A’s with nine hits and the eight runs.

The Giants saw some nice work out of Casey Schmitt, Austin Slater, Patrick Bailey, Brett Wisely and Mike Yastrzemski in that game. They will need all hands on deck against the Red Sox. Rafael Devers and Masataka Yoshida are just two of the Boston weapons the Giants will face in this one.

First pitch is scheduled for 7:15 PM.