What we learned from the Giants’ valiant comeback effort is not enough for losses originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – It wasn’t a good night for the Giants in their 8-6 series-opening loss to the Los Angeles Angels on Friday night at Oracle Park.
The launch was terrible. Starter Spencer Howard was completely ineffective and couldn’t get through three innings, so reliever Randy Rodriguez was lit up for four runs.
Mind you, this was against an Angels team that was without its best hitter, Mike Trout.
The offense once again was muted for most of the game until the end of the turn.
While San Francisco did a good job getting on base (10 hits, 7 walks), they didn’t do much when they had the guys. The first run scored when Wilmer Flores singled and scored into a double play in the fourth.
On the plus side, Flores etched his name in the history books, while Heliot Ramos stayed hot and reached base four times, including a huge three-run homer that highlighted the Giants’ five-run eighth inning.
Thairo Estrada also had an RBI single in the eighth after hitting double plays in each of his first two at-bats, and Mike Yastrzemski added an RBI double in the same inning.
Until then, it was mostly crickets.
The Giants left 10 men on base overall, leaving runners on second in each of the first two innings and again in the fourth, sixth and seventh.
All but two of San Francisco’s hits were singles. They’ve hit just one home run in their first four home runs, which has been the norm lately. The Giants have hit 22 home runs at Oracle Park this season, the fewest in the majors by a home team.
The loss dropped the Giants to 34-36. They haven’t been at .500 since the last day of May.
Here are the takeaways from Friday’s game:
Short but not sweet for Howard
The last time Howard faced the Angels was in 2022, when they beat the Halos behind five shutout innings. On Friday, the tables turned for the Giants right-hander.
Howard (0-1) gave up a single to Los Angeles leadoff hitter Nolan Schanuel on the fourth pitch of the game and then lost control over the next two innings. He gave up three hits, two walks and a run in the second, then walked two more and allowed three hits and three runs in the third.
Austin Slater’s throwing error after Kevin Pillar’s double helped score one of the Angels’ runs against Howard, who lasted 2 1/3 innings, walked four and struck out one.
It’s Howard’s shortest start since he went 2 1/3 innings against the Philadelphia Phillies on June 5, 2021, when pitching for the Texas Rangers.
Is Soler warming up?
Jorge Soler still hasn’t lived up to what the Giants expected when they signed him to a three-year, $42 million deal in the offseason, but there are signs the Cuban slugger is starting to heat up.
Soler reached base three times in four games against the Angels. He drew a leadoff walk in the second and then starter and former Giant Tyler Anderson in the fourth. After batting in the sixth, Soler was hit by a pitch and scored in the bottom of the eighth.
Soler was batting just .199 at the end of May, but in the 11 games since then he has swung the bat well since the calendar turned to June. Soler is batting .300 this month (12-for-40 with three walks).
Coach Bob Melvin maintained the belief all season that it would only take a few good games for Soler to find his groove. Soler may not be fully back to form yet, but he is definitely heading in the right direction.
FLO MILESTONE
Like many Giants hitters, Flores has not lived up to expectations this season. But the 32-year-old made a bit of history with his fourth-inning single.
It marked the 1,000th hit of Flores’ major league career and made him his 17th.th Venezuelan player with at least 1,000 career hits and 150 home runs.
Flores entered the day with a .218 batting average, the lowest of his career since his 2013 rookie season.
