SAN FRANCISCO — The schedule brought another contender to Oracle Park on Monday, but there was supposed to be a silver lining to this difficult start to the Giants’ season.
After years of asking to start their season on the road, the Giants were given a schedule that had 10 of the first 13 games at home. So far, it has been a disaster.
The bullpen blew a second straight lead Monday, and the Giants fell 6-4 in the series opener against the Philadelphia Phillies. They’re 1-7 at home for the first time since 2000, their first year at Oracle Park.
The Giants entered with an average of just 2.6 runs per game but took an early 4-0 lead. Matt Chapman’s two-run triple was the big blow in a three-run third, and Luis Arraez added another run in the fourth with a deep sacrifice fly.
The Phillies got two back against Adrian Houser in the fifth, but he stranded two more in scoring position. In the seventh, the wheels came off.
Four hits, two walks, a hit-by-pitch and a sacrifice fly led to four runs. The outburst came a day after the bullpen gave up four runs in the eighth.
Houser At Home
Houser’s first start at Oracle Park was similar in some ways to his Giants debut last week at Petco Park. He seemingly pitched a bit better than the line in the box score, and while there weren’t throwing errors this time, he got picked apart on slow rollers through the infield.
Houser got out of a jam in the third and another in the sixth, but he came back out for the seventh and immediately gave up a couple of hits. When Ryan Borucki couldn’t stop the bleeding, Houser had four runs on his line.
On The Heater
The Giants entered the night with a .453 OPS against four-seamers, the lowest in MLB by a wide margin. Rookie Andrew Painter runs his up to 99 mph, which was an awful matchup for the Giants on paper. But they were on his fastball from the start Monday.
Chapman and Arraez singled on four-seamers in the first inning, and Willy Adames ignited the third-inning rally by pulling a sinker into the left field corner for a leadoff double. Overall, the Giants had four singles on four-seamers and two singles and a double on sinkers against Painter, one of the game’s most promising young starters.
Bullpen Woes
Borucki has insane splits and needs to enter for pockets of lefties. There was one coming in the seventh, and Tony Vitello had two ways to play it.
Vitello elected to let Houser face lefty Justin Crawford, the leadoff hitter in the inning, and then Trea Turner. Both singled, and Borucki was brought on for Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper.
Schwarber walked, and Harper pulled a single to right. Because of the three-batter minimum, Borucki had to face righty Alec Bohm, as well, and he snuck a slow roller past Rafael Devers, who has not shown much range since returning to first base. Borucki ended up getting charged with two earned runs.
It certainly didn’t help the optics any when Matt Gage came on in the eighth and put up a zero against the top of the lineup.