San Francisco Giants LeMonte Wade Jr (left) scores behind San Diego Padres catcher Luis Campusano (right) in the bottom of the sixth inning at Oracle Park in San Francisco on Fri Apr 5, 2024 (AP News photo)
Friday, April 5 San Francisco
San Diego (5-5) 101 000 000. 2. 6. 0
San Francisco (3-5 ) 100 001 001 3. 5. 1
Time:2:25
Attendance: 40,645
By Lewis Rubman and Stephen Ruderman
SAN FRANCISCO–The San Francisco Giants opened the 2024 season by splitting a four game series with the Padres in San Diego before being swept by the Dodgers in a three game set at Chavez Ravine. The Pads returned the Giant’s visit by traveling to Oracle Park for San Francisco’s home opener this afternoon in the first of a three game series.
Bob Melvin and his pitching coach, Bryan Price, went with right hander Jordan Hicks, who had the win over the Friars by pitching five scoreless frames against them on March 30 to face them again this sunny but chilly and windy afternoon.
Hicks counterpart for San Diego was Dylan Cease, the losing pitcher in that contest, in which he lasers only 4-2/3 innings, but threw 85 pitches and surrendered three runs, two of which were earned. His WHIP was a respectable 0.86. So it looked like an interesting match up. It was. The Giants halted, or at least paused their downward spiral in an exciting and exceedingly strange game, pulling out a 3-2 win in front of a sell out crowd of 40,645.
The Pads, undeterred by The Curse of the Lead Off Double, drew first blood with Xander Bogaerts’ two bagger in the opening frame, followed by a productive ground out to second by Fernando Tatis, Jr. and Jake Cronerworth’s RBI single to left. Hicks escaped further damage by inducing and completing a nifty 3-6-1 twin killing off the bat of Manny Machado. The Giants knotted the score in their half of the first. Jung-Hoo Lee began things by drawing a walk and coming home on Michael Conforto’s two out double to right.
Hicks literally threw that tie away in the top of the third. With one down and Jackson Merrill on first, Bogaerts hit a sharp grounder to the mound. Hicks paused for a moment, double clutched when Nick Ahmed seemed too far from second to receive his throw, and then hurled the ball into center field, turning what would have been an inning ending double play into a runners on the corners threat.
Melvin talked about Hicks start which he was glad he won, “That was huge. I knew we had an off-day yesterday, but our bullpen’s been beat up a little bit…..[Starting] is really what he wanted to do….And the way he went about it, [he] was honest with me. In his first start that he got a little bit tired, and we took him out. Even when he came “off the field” after the sixth, he said ‘I feel great.’…..I had just felt like he still had a lot left…..It looked like he was throwing harder later on in the game.” said Melvin.
Tatís made good on that threat with a tie-breaking single to left. A pitcher’s best friend kept things from getting worse. Cronerworth hit into it and was out at first even though he beat Ahmed’s throw. The reason: Bogaerts had committed runner’s interference. It was that sort of. game, and the Padres were leading it, 2-1.
The weirdness continued in the Giants’ half of the fourth. Conforto led off with a two bagger to right center. He broke for third on Matt Chapman’s bounding ball to short and had to reverse course and dive back to the bag to avoided being put out. Chapman, meanwhile, reached first on the fielder’s choice. Both runners moved up a base on Cease’s wild pitch to Estrada, but Conforto was thrown out at home trying to score on the play. Mike Yastrzemski fanned, and Giants still trailed, 2-1. “[Conforto was] just trying to do a little too much there. It’s Opening Day…..I think [he] just [had] some exuberance on Opening Day, and [was] just trying to do a little too much.” said Melvin
The Giants pulled even in the sixth. Wade walked to start the inning and went to third on Conforto’s one out single (you read that right, single) off the top of the Levi’s Landing brick wall. He scored on Chapman’s ground out to short.
Cease ceased pitching after that inning. He left with a no decision but reduced his ERA to 3.38, having yielded two runs, both earned, on four hits, two walks, and a wild pitch. 64 of his 102 offerings were counted as strikes. His replacement was Yuki Matsui, who set the Giants down in order on three grounders to short in the seventh, his one inning on the mound.
Once Matsui had accomplished that, Tyler, the right handed submariner, Rogers relieved Hicks, who, like Cease. had to be satisfied with a no decision that improved his ERA. His went down tor a miniscule 0.77. The Giants’ starter had thrown 91 pitches, 61 for strikes, over his seven innings of labor, in which he allowed two runs, only one of which was earned, on six hits and no walks.
Wandy Peralta came in to pitch a 1-2-3 bottom of the eighth for the Friars, and SF’s closer, Camilo Doval, was called on to preserve the tie in the top of the ninth. He did, although not before allowing a safety to Cronerworrh and walk The Manny You Love to Hate.
Peralta returned for the bottom of the ninth to face Conforto, who popped out second. Enyel de los Santos then assumed mound duties for the Padres. His fourth pitch plunked Chapman. Estrada’s liner off de los Santos’s second offering split the the outfielders between left and center, and Chapman raced home with the walk-off run that won the game for San Francisco, “Thank god we won, because we did a couple [of] things early in the game that swung the game to their side.” said Melvin.
The series will be resumed Saturday evening at 6:05 with Keaton Winn (0-1, 5.40) going for San Francisco and Michael King (1-0, 6.14) for the Padres.
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