Chris Szagola/Associated Press
Chris Szagola/Associated Press
Chris Szagola/Associated Press
Chris Szagola/Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA — The staffs, in particular the starters, of the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies were issuing plenty of free passes Wednesday night. In total, 15 walks were doled out in a sloppy three-hour game.
But it was the Giants who made the most of them, using 13 hits and nine walks to transform a close contest against a tough Phillies lineup into a blowout 11-4 victory that guaranteed them at least a split of the four-game set at Citizens Bank Park.
It was the second time the Giants had scored double-digit runs in the series as every single member of the starting lineup reached base at least twice. LaMonte Wade Jr. (who walked twice and struck out twice) was the only Giants starter without a hit. Mike Yastrzemski, Jung Hoo Lee, Matt Chapman and Tyler Fitzgerald recorded multi-hit games, with Fitzgerald’s three leading the charge.
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As has become a theme this year, the Giants were methodical but effective at the plate — going 6-for-16 with runners in scoring position — despite another windy night in Philadelphia.
“We’ve seen a lot of it this year,” manager Bob Melvin said. “In a night that was going to be tough to hit the ball at the ballpark, you saw a lot of balls that were hit good. Not trying to do too much. Taking our hits, taking our walks and scoring in that fashion.”
It’s been a revelatory road trip for Fitzgerald. The second baseman came to the East Coast lugging a .219 average with two extra-base hits, one RBI and a .546 OPS, but feeling inspired by a bit of hitting advice he got during the last homestand from the home run king, Barry Bonds. Since Friday, against the New York Yankees and Phillies, he was 9-for-19 (.474) with two doubles, a triple, a home run and four RBIs entering Thursday to raise his average to .314 and his OPS to .842.
“It’s been fantastic here recently,” Melvin said. “He went from a really tough time to start — he’s a slow starter to begin with — but you look up now and he’s hitting over .300 and it’s been fantastic. It’s settling down the bottom of the order, knocking in some runs and scoring runs, too.”
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The Giants first took advantage of a shaky Aaron Nola, the Phillies starter, in the first inning. A four-run uprising began with Willy Adames’ one-out double and Lee’s RBI single. After Chapman’s single, Nola issued a pair of walks to force in a second run. Patrick Bailey’s two-RBI single made it 4-0.
Giants starter Robbie Ray also had issues finding the strike zone. It took him 39 pitches to get through an arduous first inning in which he walked four batters, two of whom scored, and threw only 16 strikes. Ray said he recognized early on an issue with his delivery in which his front side was flying open too fast, which made him pull his pitches.
“It’s unfortunate, the team puts up a four-spot and you want to go out and attack guys. I was just a tick off,” Ray said. “It should be something that I should be able to make a correction pitch-to-pitch, that’s where it bites you. You go out there and can’t make a correction and you throw 39 pitches in an inning.”
Ray walked Bryce Harper twice on eight straight balls — a careful approach given that Harper came into the game with a career .455 average against Ray in 11 at-bats. In his third plate appearance, Harper got a strike and crushed a slider to right for a game-tying two-run home run. The blast came after Ray made the adjustment to fix his mechanics, which helped him get through four innings with five walks — matching a season high — and a season-high eight strikeouts. After a spring focused entirely on pounding the zone, it’s the high walk count that bothered Ray most.
“It was self-inflicted,” Ray said. “It’s not like I was giving up missiles all over the yard, it was the walks that killed me. After the first inning, I did a good job getting back in the zone and really attacking guys.”
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San Francisco went ahead in the fifth inning 5-4 when center fielder Johan Rojas air-mailed a throw to the infield on Chapman’s single. Lee, who had legged out a double, scored as the ball bounced into the stands above the visiting dugout. Despite a 35-pitch first inning, the Giants couldn’t get Nola out of the game until he issued his fourth walk to Yastrzemski in the sixth inning to load the bases. Against reliever Jose Ruiz, Adames drew a walk, the fourth of the game with the bases loaded, to score the Giants’ sixth run.
Wade’s walk was the only one the Giants drew in a four-run seventh inning to break the game open.
Relievers Lou Trivino, Camilo Doval and Spencer Bivens countered Ray’s walks by issuing just one free pass (and one hit) over five scoreless innings.
Trivino, who missed the previous two seasons with injuries, earned his first win since Aug. 21, 2022, with the Yankees. A meaningful win not just because of his long-awaited return to the big leagues from Tommy John surgery, but because he got the win in the ballpark he grew up attending as a childhood Phillies fan and Green Lane, Pa., native.
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“It’s cool to be back in the stadium again,” Trivino said. “Growing up as a kid coming here to the games. It’s special to play on this field.”
