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.

AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

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 base paths.

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

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 with an ill-conceived and poorly executed attempt to steal second, despite the Giants having a runner at third with one out.

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

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.

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.

AP Photo/Lynne Sladky

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 Trevor 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, J.T. Brubaker, to get out of the inning.

McDonald allowed an equal number of hits, walks and hit batters (three apiece) in three-plus innings — his shortest start of the season — while surrendering five runs, three earned.

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

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 was late covering first and missed the bag when he tried to tag it with his right foot.

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.

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.

Who’s not

Hours after manager Tony 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.

Since beating the A’s with 6 ⅔ innings of one-run ball in his third start on 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.

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.