SAN FRANCISCO — For two straight nights, the Braves and Giants have played in a playoff-like atmosphere.
And for two straight nights, the Giants fell just short in the 10th inning.
In the series opener, San Francisco was a hit or two shy of rewarding Blake Snell for his masterpiece. Tuesday, it was more of the same: the Giants went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position on Monday and 0-for-10 in the same situation in the second game of the series.
Chasing a run in the 10th, just like they were on Monday, the Giants tried to bunt the placed runner over but failed. Two more hitters — LaMonte Wade Jr and Heliot Ramos — went down with the game-tying run at second.
Tyler Fitzgerald socked his 13th homer, but Kyle Harrison (5 IP, 6H, 3ER, 2BB, 6K) struggled to deploy his fastball and missed opportunities defined the Giants (61-61) in their 4-3 loss. Now the best the Giants can do is split this pivotal four-game series.
In Monday night’s 1-0 Giants defeat, San Francisco’s best scoring chance came in the first inning. Both teams had a decent shot to score in the opening frame in the second game of this four-game series.
Harrison looked shaky to start, walking leadoff man Jorge Soler and serving up a lined single right after. To slugger Matt Olson, the southpaw hung a slider middle-middle and was lucky for it to land in center fielder Heliot Ramos’ glove on the warning track. But Harrison recovered to strike out Travis d’Arnaud on an up-and-away fastball, stranding runners on the corners.
In the bottom half, the Giants left Heliot Ramos at third after he smoked a two-out triple 108.2 mph into the right-center alley. The Giants have struggled with situational hitting all year and especially recently. Their .234 batting average with runners in scoring position entering Tuesday is the worst by a Giants club since 2011.
Meanwhile, Harrison never discovered his best stuff. Although his fastball returned to regular velocity, it wasn’t as effective as normal. Ramon Laureano went with an outsider four-seamer for a solo shot over the right-field bricks.
Three batters later, Soler smoked a double between Ramos and Mike Yastrzemski, putting Atlanta up 2-0. The former Giant’s RBI registered a 107.1-mph exit velocity.
A pair of singles up the middle helped San Francisco halve the Braves’ lead in the bottom of the second, but Harrison’s struggles to locate continued. d’Arnaud turned on a 90-mph fastball over the plate for another home run off Harrison’s best pitch.
Before Tuesday, Harrison’s four-seamer ranked in the 93rd percentile in fastball run value, per Baseball Savant. His extension, pitch sequencing and deception have made the pitch by far his best weapon in his young career. Yet five of the six hits Harrison allowed against the Braves came off fastballs.
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Harrison and the Giants didn’t let the game get out of control, though. They hit their first home run in five games when Fitzgerald cleared the home bullpen in center field. His solo shot sailed 425 feet and would’ve been gone in all 30 ballparks.
Fitzgerald’s home run trimmed Atlanta’s lead to 3-2. Harrison stayed in and struck out two — Marcell Ozuna on an elevated fastball and d’Arnaud with a slider — to get through the fifth inning unvarnished.
Harrison faltered but didn’t disqualify the Giants. Sean Hjelle replaced Harrison after that fifth inning, taking the mound facing a 3-2 deficit as the sky above the China Basin had a cotton-candy hue.
Hjelle worked around a Fitzgerald error for a clean frame. Landen Roupp followed suit in the seventh, stranding runners on the corners and then staying in for a scoreless eighth, too.
But the one-run deficit was at a standstill as San Francisco’s offense went dormant. Between the fifth and the seventh innings, Matt Chapman was the only Giant to reach base, and he got caught stealing.
Then the Giants, with the heart of their order up, caught some breaks. To lead off the bottom of the eighth, Soler — who has solely played the outfield after only DH-ing for the Giants before the trade deadline — took a poor route to LaMonte Wade Jr.’s fly ball. With Wade on second, Austin Riley fumbled a sharp grounder, putting two on and no out.
Despite Michael Conforto rolling into a double play to bring the Giants to 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, Wade still scored on a wild pitch. Considering the Giants’ struggles with RISP, scoring the game-tying run without swinging the bat was a gift.
Jordan Hicks, the closer-turned-starter-turned-reliever struck out Ozuna looking to end the top of the ninth, giving the Giants a chance at their 10th walk-off of the season.
Patrick Bailey, the slumping catcher, nearly had it. But Eli White made a leaping grab at the wall, erasing what would’ve been a double. Instead, the Giants went down in order, sending the game into extras for a second straight night.
And like on Monday night, the Braves did just enough in the 10th while the Giants came up empty. d’Arnaud snuck a grounder through the gap between first and second, allowing the automatic runner to wheel around third and score easily.
Facing a 4-3 deficit, the Giants changed strategies. They elected not to bunt on Monday, which Bob Melvin explaining that it’s hard to “play for a tie” and he preferred taking three swings with the man on second instead of giving up an out to move the runner over from second to third. This time, he bunted Fitzgerald, the hottest hitter on the team, but he both got out and failed to advance Casey Schmitt to third. San Francisco went down quietly after that.
Right strategy or wrong, the execution wasn’t there. And in the biggest moments, the Giants fell short again.
