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The dress rehearsal was a colossal failure, but the real deal was a stinker, too.
Can the Giants try a third opener on Saturday?
Probably not. Two is all they get. Wednesday’s Opening Night belonged to Netflix and Major League Baseball, a supposed global spectacle that didn’t involve Giants folks who usually pretty up Oracle Park for their first-game extravaganzas. Thursday’s Opening Day was their opener.
With the sun out and Netflix gone, the Giants took back their ballpark but still failed to crack the win column. Following an embarrassing 7-0 loss, the Giants bowed down to the Yankees again and fell 3-0.
The offense that looked so promising and efficient in spring training has gone back into winter hibernation. They struck out 13 times Friday and have collected all of four hits in two games. The additions of Luis Arráez and Harrison Bader, signed to add depth and balance to the lineup, have not yet had an effect.
Tony Vitello is 0-2 as a big-league manager, and it’s never too early to tweak the lineup. The same nine who started Wednesday were back in the same spots Friday, and it fell short again. One option is to let Jerar Encarnación play.
Encarnación’s power can rival Rafael Devers’, and there are two ways he could be inserted into the lineup. Either as the first baseman, replacing Casey Schmitt, or the designated hitter if Rafael Devers moves to first base.
The Giants have been careful with Devers, who’s coming off a hamstring injury and used him only as a DH.
“I think Jerar’s definitely a possibility,” Vitello said before the game. “The best thing about Jerar is, he’s got an extra sense of motivation to prove to that position. Casey right now is probably a little ahead of him defensively. But again, with how big of a target [Encarnación] is, he’s certainly an added weapon. I think everybody’s anxious to see his first crack at it, whenever we feel the time is right up at the plate.”
Like with Wednesday, Vitello used no pinch-hitters. He could have hit Encarnación for lefty swinging Jung Hoo Lee with two outs and a runner aboard in the seventh inning, but Lee stayed in the game against lefty reliever Tim Hill and routinely bounced out to first base to end the inning.
On a gorgeous afternoon by the bay, it felt like a normal Giants opener, and the fans embraced the pregame ceremony. Broadcaster Jon Miller introduced the players and coaches along the third-base line, and new Hall of Famer Jeff Kent tossed the ceremonial first pitch to his old manager, Dusty Baker.
Robbie Ray allowed two earned runs in 5 1/3 innings in his first start of the season. | Source: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Once the game started, it was all Yankees again as Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton homered off Robbie Ray in the sixth inning. It didn’t start smoothly for the Giants as new leadoff hitter Luis Arráez fell behind in the count 0-1 before seeing a single pitch because of a clock violation, and Yankees 6-foot-6 starter Cam Schlittler baffled hitters with a nasty selection of fastballs through 5 ⅓ innings.
The Giants’ only hit was Heliot Ramos’ double down the right field line. Devers and Willy Adames struck out three times apiece, and Ramos whiffed twice. No Giant reached third base until there were two outs in the ninth inning.
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It didn’t take long for fans to witness the game’s first ABS (automatic ball-strike) challenge system. In the first inning, after Devers took Schlittler’s 0-2 fastball, New York’s Austin Wells tapped the top of his catcher’s helmet to ask for a challenge. Seconds later, the scoreboard showed the pitch traveled through the lower part of the zone for strike three.
It was the second ABS challenge so far in the Giants’ season, but there was a difference in this one. The Netflix crew whiffed on broadcasting Wednesday’s, preferring to show a Vitello interview, but the NBC Sports Bay Area folks got it right and included Friday’s on the air.
Judge also asked for a challenge in the fateful sixth inning, and won, turning a 1-1 count to 2-0, and later smashed Ray’s 3-2 fastball 405 feet over the left-field wall, his first hit in eight at-bats. Immediately after José Buttó replaced Ray Stanton one-upped Judge with a 414-foot blast.
It was the first time Vitello made a pitching move during an inning, and the three-run deficit seemed out of reach for the GIants’ anemic offense.
The Giants’ first challenge came with one out in sixth with Ryan McMahon at the plate. Catcher Patrick Bailey thought a called strike was a ball, but he was was proven wrong. McMahon walked. Next batter, Bailey challenged again and got it right, Jazz Chisholm Jr. grounded out with the bases loaded.