PHILADELPHIA — It’s debatable what was more relentless Saturday evening at Citizens Bank Park: the rain, or the Phillies’ offense.
Neither let up for most of the night, and the ominous weather that delayed first pitch by 70 minutes proved to have some prescient qualities to it.
Adding injury to insult, the Giants lost their second catcher in as many days, their starting pitcher failed to make it out of the first inning, and nobody was smiling about enduring a 14-3 loss in a constant downpour. It ended with a position player, Tyler Fitzgerald, playing out the string on the pitcher’s mound.
“It definitely didn’t make it any easier,” Giants starter Keaton Winn said of the conditions after recording only two outs while being tagged for five runs on four hits, two walks and a hit batsman, adding nearly a point and a half to his ERA, to 4.41 from 3.18.
You could say Winn had the worst night of anyone, struggling to grip the baseball, find the strike zone or fool Phillies hitters. Making matters worse, the right-hander was battling a persistent head cold. But then again, he was granted shelter in the third-base dugout after recording only two outs while his defense slogged through a five-run first inning and a four-run second against Mitch White.
“Look, both teams had to play in it,” manager Bob Melvin said of the rain that never let up. “It’s not ideal for anybody. But as long as both teams are playing in it, you’ve got to figure out the best way to do it. … They kept saying that it was minutes away from lightening up.”
Winn acknowledged that he couldn’t grip his signature splitter because of the wet ball, but the suboptimal playing conditions took their biggest toll on his catcher, Tom Murphy. The backup catcher was forced from the game in the second inning when he injured his knee blocking a pitch in the dirt, leaving Blake Sabol as the only healthy backstop on the active roster after Patrick Bailey left Friday night’s loss with a concussion.
Murphy said that he felt his knee “pop” and that the constant downpour that delayed the start of the game by 70 minutes and never let up played a “big time” role in the injury. The catcher was set to undergo imaging on Sunday, but for now, Melvin said, “It feels like it’s significant.”
By the time the Giants came to bat for a third time, everyone was drenched and they were in a nine-run hole.
It was evident from the get-go that the wet conditions were bothersome to Winn, who issued walks to the first two batters he faced and hit the Phillies’ cleanup man, Alec Bohm. Winn was unable to command either of his two best pitches, the splitter and sinker, and mostly relented to four-seam fastballs before Bob Melvin came out to get him.
“It was mainly on the splits,” Winn said. “Just overcorrecting because it’s a pitch that slips. That’s what I was doing tonight.”
The Phillies batted around in the first inning, forcing Winn to exhaust 39 pitches before departed with an out remaining.
“I would have liked to have had him finish the first inning,” Melvin said, “but at 39 pitches, if he gets into a pitch count battle with the next guy, that’s just too many pitches.”
Winn’s two-thirds of an inning amounted to the shortest start by a Giants pitcher this season, besides their two games using openers, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Giants are in the middle of their longest stretch of the season without a day off — 16 straight games — and were already facing a bind to cover Blake Snell’s next turn through the rotation on Monday.
The schedule meant a bullpen game wasn’t a feasible option for Monday, Melvin said, and that was before he employed four relievers behind Winn.
“We’ve got Webby going tomorrow, so hopefully that’s a benefit,” Melvin said. “But we’re certainly going to have to look at some things coming up.”
Winn’s stinker also snapped a string of strong starts personally — he had allowed three runs over 18 innings in his past three outings — and for the rotation as a whole.
Giants starters had limited opponents to 11 earned runs over their past 11 games, a 1.92 ERA.
The Phillies’ 14 runs were the second-most by a Giants’ opponent this season, trailing only their 17-1 loss to the Diamondbacks last month.
As the Giants attempted to cut into the deficit, they faced the same challenges that have plagued them all season. They put runners on base but weren’t able to drive them in. Six Giants reached between the second and third innings, but Nick Ahmed, who doubled to lead off the second, was the only one to cross the plate.
It was no easy task against Ranger Suarez, the National League pitcher of the month for March and April. The 1.32 ERA the deceptive left-hander took into Saturday night’s start didn’t budge much over six innings, the only other damage coming on a two-run home run from Wilmer Flores in the fifth.
The homer was Flores’ first of the season and the 150th of his career but proved to be too little, too late.
The last time the Giants scored more than three runs was April 23, nine games ago, outdoing even the offensive destitution to finish last season. It is their longest stretch without eclipsing three runs since going 11 games from September 4-16, 2018.
Notable
Randy Rodriguez made his major-league debut, entering in relief of White in the fourth inning. The 24-year-old right-hander was the fifth pitcher to debut this season out of the Giants’ bullpen. He fired a 99.5 mph fastball that froze Bryce Harper for his first career strikeout.
“Based on what we saw in spring training and what we saw tonight,” Melvin said, “completely different guy.”
Up next
RHP Logan Webb (3-2, 2.98) vs. RHP Taijuan Walker (1-0, 8.53), with first pitch scheduled for 4:10 p.m. PT on ESPN.
