Giants commit 4 errors, can’t find strike zone in ugly loss to Marlins

MIAMI — There is no shortage of competition for the ugliest, most bumbling display of baseball the Giants have put on in this disastrous start of a season.

We might have a new front-runner.

Sure, the scoreboard may have only read 6-3 in favor of the Marlins on Saturday. The Giants even pounded out 10 hits, including five for extra bases, to Miami’s six.

But consider this: A bases-loaded walk that was the third of the inning. Three hit batsmen in three-plus innings from their starter, plus another from the reliever who took over for him. A cascade of errors, in the field and on the basepaths.

“It’s tougher to play defense, it’s tougher swing the bat when you don’t attack the strike zone,” manager Tony Vitello said. “It just gets everything out of whack. … You’re not going to win too many games when you give up that many free bases, whether it’s walks or hit by pitch — whatever it might be.”

And, to boot, all that before the Giants had even batted for a fifth time.

“Just piss poor overall from me,” said starter Trevor McDonald, who was responsible for the three first-inning walks, three hit batters and five runs (three earned) in his shortest start of the season.

That’s to say nothing of the uncompetitive at-bats that ended in Matt Chapman and Rafael Devers staring at strike three, or the soft ground ball that Devers didn’t hustle down the line.

Drew Gilbert did some good with a line-drive single that drove in a run but then almost immediately negated it caught stealing second with a runner at third and one out, which Vitello said was drawn up as a safety squeeze that went awry when Eric Haase took strike two.

It was a redux of all the tropes that left the Giants 14 games below .500 after the loss.

Yet, somehow they hit a new low: Never in the San Francisco era had the Giants committed four errors and hit four opposing batters in one game.

---

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters

Even down to the positives, the little of them that there were, provided almost exclusively by Casey Schmitt, whose emergence has been one of the Giants’ few bright spots.

“I’m just going out and trying to hit line drives. If they go over, they go over. It’s not really my goal,” said Schmitt, who hadn’t homered in 11 games, his longest dry spell of the season. “I’m just staying calm, being relaxed in the box. That’s always been the big thing for me.”

Schmitt launched his team-leading 16th homer of the season and came inches away from his 17th, instead settling for an oddity of a double that set up Gilbert’s RBI single.

Center fielder Jakob Marsee came close to robbing Schmitt’s near-homer but trapped the ball against the wall, flipping it to himself. The confusion meant Jung Hoo Lee, who doubled to lead off the inning, had to play it safe and only made it to third, though he was quickly singled home by Gilbert.

“He got up there, almost made a great catch,” Schmitt said. “But on the replay you could see it hit his glove and it was coming out of his glove and off the wall.”

That got the Giants on the board, and Schmitt’s homer tied the score at 2 in the top of the fourth. Schmitt and Lee added a second round of two-baggers to make it 6-3 in the eighth.

But it had all come undone in the bottom half of the fourth as McDonald failed to record an out, Matt Gage hit a batter, walked another and served up a home run, and it required the work of a third pitcher, JT Brubaker, to get out of the inning.

“Basically, the fourth was mismanaged by everybody,” Vitello said. “It ends up being the big inning and the difference in the game. … That inning started with [McDonald] basically getting a three-hitter window and we didn’t get any of those guys out. Things obviously accumulated.”

McDonald was responsible for one of the Giants’ four errors, though he got no help from his defense. 

“When I got out and walk three and hit [three], that doesn’t help either,” McDonald said.

Devers whiffed on a ground ball to first base from the second batter of the game, leading to the Marlins’ first run after McDonald walked his third batter of the inning. 

Devers got another opportunity in the second with the bases loaded and a chance to escape the jam unscathed. He fielded it cleanly, but this time, McDonald missed the bag when he tried to tag it with his right foot, allowing the Marlins to score a second unearned run.

“I was just watching the ball from Rafi,” McDonald said, “instead of getting to the bag like I’m supposed to.”

Catcher Eric Haase allowed another runner to reach on an interference call and went 0-for-3 catching base stealers, with two of his throws so offline that they sailed into the outfield grass.

“When lack of execution occurs multiple times,” Vitello said, “all of a sudden it looks sloppy.”

What it means

The Giants, fresh off a doubleheader sweep of the MLB-best Braves, are right back to where they were when they set out on the road trip after a second straight loss to the Marlins.

Who’s hot

Besides the aggressive steal attempt that didn’t pay off, Gilbert had a nice game with two hits, including a double, to go along with his RBI single for a season-high three knocks — only his fourth multi-hit game since the end of April while he has batted .196.

Gilbert added a highlight-reel catch in center field for the final out of the fifth, tracking down a deep drive from Kyle Stowers before crashing into the wall.

“Early this year, he was so amped up he was almost raging at the plate and going so fast in the outfield, a couple times even failed to pick up the ball,” Vitello said. “I think he’s kind of finding his way and settling in and realizing he belongs here and he’s capable of doing good things for us, but he doesn’t have to be Superman.”

Who’s not

Hours after Vitello affirmed McDonald’s spot in the starting rotation, with Adrian Houser joining the bullpen ahead of Tyler Mahle’s return, he could hardly find the strike zone.

McDonald, it seemed, barely knew where his three-pitch mix was going at all.

“I think [McDonald was] kind of fighting it the last couple times out delivery-wise,” Vitello said. “Just a little bit out of sorts with his delivery. … It was going good for him and for whatever reason [he] got derailed a bit, in particular his last two times out.”

Since beating the Athletics with 6 ⅔ innings of one-run ball in his third start May 16 to lower his ERA to 2.37, McDonald is 0-5 with a 6.75 ERA, including 15 walks and seven HBPs.

He has walked three batters in each of his last four times taking the mound.

McDonald agreed that there was “something small” about his “posture” that was off Saturday but said it was only something pitching coach Justin Meccage pointed out around the third inning.

“I’ve got to figure it out,” McDonald said. “And I will.”

Up next

Logan Webb will look to pick up where he left off the last time he took the mound in the series finale against Ryan Gusto, with first pitch set for 10:40 a.m. PT Sunday.

The Giants’ ace has looked more like himself since returning from the injured list, allowing one earned run over his past three starts, spanning 25 innings.