Giants starter Logan Webb delivers during the first inning Saturday in Baltimore. He allowed four runs in six innings of the Giants’ 6-2 loss at Camden Yards.
Stephanie Scarbrough/Associated Press
Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson celebrates with teammates after hitting a home run in the third inning of the Orioles’ win over the Giants in Baltimore on Saturday.
Stephanie Scarbrough/Associated Press
Baltimore shortstop Gunnar Henderson throws to first base to complete a double play as the Giants’ Willy Adames is forced out at second base on Saturday.
Stephanie Scarbrough/Associated Press
BALTIMORE — One sequence Saturday at Camden Yards seemed to negatively impact the San Francisco Giants — and on into the evening — even though it was the Orioles who incurred an out on the play.
In the fourth inning of the Giants’ eventual 6-2 loss to the Orioles, with Dylan Beavers on after a walk, Leody Tavares hit a bouncer to second baseman Luis Arraez. Beavers tried to vault over Arraez as Arraez made a play on the grounder, and inadvertently kicked Arraez in the hand. Beavers was called out immediately for interference as the Giants converged around various umpires and trainer Dave Groeschner examined Arraez’s hand.
Arraez’s throw to first actually beat Tavares and yet Tavares was ruled safe, because the play was ruled dead from the moment of the kick. Per an MLB spokesman, “the runner was called out for hindering the fielder’s ability to field the ball.”
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In this instance, such a ruling appears punitive to the fielding team — the Giants’ player got kicked and still made the play at first, but the runner remained on the bag — and later scored in the inning, with the Orioles pushing in two against Logan Webb, who’d had to wait through three minutes of milling around after the interference call.
Arraez stayed in and made a slick backhand play behind the bag two plays later. He then got a hit in the fifth but came out in the bottom of the inning, Christian Koss replacing him with Casey Schmitt serving as DH. The Giants later announced that Arraez had left with a right wrist contusion.
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Arraez, the three-time batting champ, was unavailable to speak to reporters but X-rays were negative and he is considered day-to-day.
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Manager Tony Vitello didn’t think Beavers was trying to make contact with Arraez. “I think the ball and the runner and the defender were kind of all meeting at the same time,” he said. “I think the read there is correct — I don’t think there was anything malicious on their part.”
It’s not like the NBA’s continuation play, Vitello said — when interference is called, that’s it — even if the runner is thrown out at first.
“It’s about whether there was intent there or not,” he said. “I got to play lawyer there a little bit. The argument against it is he didn’t not try to get out of the way, he continued on and did not get out of the way of the infielder. … They weren’t going to reverse it and I haven’t seen it on video, but I don’t think there’s much an umpire can do once a ball is dead.”
San Francisco, which had won three in a row, never was quite the same after the weirdness of the fourth. The Giants had scored single runs off Chris Bassitt, with Heliot Ramos providing a two-out RBI single in the second and a run-scoring groundout in the fourth. They stranded men in scoring position in the fifth and eighth innings, and went 2-for-14 overall with runners in scoring position.
Webb allowed four runs in all, including Gunnar Henderson’s solo shot in the third, ending Webb’s homerless string at 39⅓ innings. After four starts, Webb has a 5.25 ERA.
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“Overall, pretty bad,” Webb said, pointing to his three walks Saturday and nine overall. “I mean, I’m just not doing my job very well right now.
“I’m not putting the team in a good spot to win. We score a run in the second, I gave it right back so. We tied it again, and then I gave up two more. So it was just a bad job by me.”
Caleb Kilian came on in relief in the seventh and allowed a leadoff homer to Jeremiah Jackson, and lefty Ryan Borucki worked 1⅓ innings and gave up three hits and and a run. His ERA stands at 8.44 and he has had extreme difficulty retiring right-handed hitters, who are 7-for-11 against him; the team loves Borucki’s numbers against lefties, especially some of the biggest names in the game, but should the Giants look for another option at Triple-A Sacramento, lefty Juan Sanchez has yet to allow a run but is not on the 40-man roster.
They might not have to wait too long for a lefty with big-league experience: Vitello said that Sam Hentges, who is coming back from shoulder capsule surgery, is about to start a rehab assignment.
The lineup has been the same the first two days at Baltimore but was to change Sunday. With a day game after a night game and a lefty, Cade Povich, on the mound for Baltimore, Daniel Susac was slated to start at catcher with Koss, Jerar Encarnacion and Jared Oliva also possibilities to see time.
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Susac pinch hit with two on and no outs in the ninth Saturday and bounced into a double play, a true sign it wasn’t the Giants’ night after Susac had started the season 6-for-7.
“I will say, it just kind of had a strange feeling at different moments tonight, it wasn’t just the one play that’s kind of unique and that only pops up every now and then,” Vitello said. “It was just kind of a quirky night.”