SAN DIEGO — Out of the playoff race, the Giants are committed to playing the kids this September.
That comes with the good and the bad — and the ugly — on display Friday night in a 5-1 loss to begin their series against the postseason-bound Padres (81-62).
Making his second spot start in place of Robbie Ray, Mason Black surrendered four of the Padres runs and put the Giants (69-73) in an early hole. But the 25-year-old rookie right-hander also came one out shy of completing five innings for a second straight start after accomplishing the feat for the first time in the big leagues his last time out.
“I’m just trying to put everything together,” Black said afterward. “I feel like there have been some good moments and some rough ones out there. So just kind of put everything together, try to develop and learn and just keep rolling.”
Black was speaking to his goals for the final three weeks of the season but just as well could have been describing the Giants’ latest loss.
Three of the Padres’ four runs came in the first inning, aided by some shoddy defense, but Black rebounded to retire 13 of the final 16 batters he faced before being chased from the game after back-to-back two-out base hits in the fifth.
Leading off the bottom of the first, Luis Arraez and Fernando Tatis Jr. got things started with back-to-back singles off Black. They both came around to score on a sacrifice fly from the next batter, Jurickson Profar, despite them occupying first and second base.
When the runners bolted on Profar’s fly out to right, Mike Yastrzemski made an aggressive and ill-fated attempt to nab the lead runner at third. The throw was already past second base when rookie shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald cut it off and made the play’s most crucial error trying to recover and get Tatis advancing to second.
He made a quick, hard throw to rookie second baseman Marco Luciano, who let the ball get by him and roll all the way back to Yastrzemski in the right-field corner.
The next batter, Manny Machado, launched a breaking ball into the left-field seats, extending the Padres’ first-inning lead to 3-0. But Black got his revenge in their next battle, firing a fastball past the All-Star third baseman to end the third inning.
At 94.6 mph, it would have matched Black’s fourth-hardest pitch of the season. But it was only his fourth-hardest of the night, with his velocity was up across the board — 92.8 mph on his four-seamer (+0.9 mph) and 93.2 mph on his sinker (+1.2 mph).
“We’ve seen his velo go down at about the 70-pitch mark, the 60-pitch mark, and he kept it up today,” Melvin said.
Machado padded the Padres’ lead twice more, with a single off Sean Hjelle in the fifth to drive in one of the runners left on by Black and a second solo shot off Austin Warren in the seventh that made it 5-1 and tied him for the all-time home run lead in San Diego franchise history.
But the misplay that preceded Machado’s first home run, Melvin said, “set the tone for the game.”
“We’re gonna get some mistakes from time to time, but early in the game like that, it’s just a little bit of a downer.”
While Yastrzemski hit the cutoff man — Fitzgerald — Melvin said his throw “probably” should have gone to second to prevent Tatis from advancing. The only mistake Fitzgerald made was with the accuracy of his throw, Melvin said, not his intention.
“You’ve just got to make a good throw, regardless, and it just got away from him,” Melvin said. “He’s learning the position in the big leagues. He’s moved around a bunch. He’s played the outfield. It’s his first time where he’s gotten all his games at shortstop. There’s going to be some mistakes.”
Afterward, Matt Chapman took Fitzgerald under his wing with a lengthy discussion at his locker.
“I just kind of figured he was a good guy to talk to about it,” Fitzgerald said, keeping the details of their conversation private. “Just like hitting, you can get into a little fielding slump, so I’m just trying to get out of own head and ask the guy who’s the best defender I’ve ever seen.”
Crediting Tatis’ base running, Fitzgerald said he wasn’t sure if a good throw would have gotten him. But it would have kept runners at second and third, at least until Machado drove one over the wall a batter later.
“It just kind of sped up,” he said. “I saw the ball flying and out of the corner of my eye see Tatis going to second. I had to make a transfer as fast as I could. I probably should have slowed it down a bit, but it was just instinctual.”
Offensively, the Giants were sulking along against Padres starter Michael King, who had taken no-hit bids into the seventh inning twice this season and seemed like he was pining for another until San Francisco’s No. 9 hitter, rookie Grant McCray, lined their first hit into left field with two down in the third.
The Giants finished with six hits, half coming from first or second-year players, as McCray went the opposite way for a second time and Heliot Ramos singled to start a fruitless bases-loaded opportunity in the fourth. The Giants went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position and stranded six men on base.
“We just couldn’t take advantage of opportunities,” Melvin said. “Their guy pitched good, but when you have opportunities, you have to get some big hits, and we didn’t do it.”
To crack the scoreboard, it took the work of a veteran, as Michael Conforto contributed their only run with a solo shot to lead off the sixth inning.
Nevertheless, Friday night offered a preview of what’s to come over the final three weeks of a season that started with much bigger aspirations than September silver linings. The starting lineup featured five players 25 or younger, plus one more on the mound in Black.
With his 4⅔ frames, Black increased the workload shouldered by Giants rookie pitchers to a league-leading 459 innings, already the most in one season in franchise history since 1975. Their rookie position players have logged only the 14th-most games of any team but contributed the league’s second-best OPS at .759 entering Friday.
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“You prepare to go out there and win every game. Now, we’re going to do it a little differently,” Melvin said before the game. “We’re going to have younger guys in the lineup, which we’ve had here for a while. But the younger guys have also produced. …
“I think at this point in time there are some questions that need to be answered in terms of development that needs to take place going into next year, which probably wasn’t the case a couple weeks ago. So, that’s a little different. But it’s still the major leagues and every game we go out there, we prepare to win.”
Notable
Conforto’s home run was his 16th of the season — and the 13th that has come away from Oracle Park, where he owns a .650 OPS compared to an .814 mark on the road. … Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, the Giants’ road ERA rose to 4.71, fifth-worst in the majors, almost a full point higher than their 3.76 mark at home.
Up next
The second game of the series has the makings of a pitchers’ duel with RHP Logan Webb (11-9, 3.43) matched up against RHP Dylan Cease (12-10, 3.62). First pitch is schedule for 5:40 p.m.
