SAN DIEGO — Out of the playoff race, the Giants are committed to playing the kids this September.
That comes with the good and the bad — and the ugly — on display Friday night in a 5-1 loss to begin their series against the postseason-bound Padres (81-62).
Making his second spot start in place of Robbie Ray, Mason Black surrendered four of the Padres runs and put the Giants (69-73) in an early hole. But the 25-year-old rookie right-hander also came one out shy of completing five innings for a second straight start after accomplishing the feat for the first time in the big leagues his last time out.
Three of the Padres’ four runs came in the first inning, aided by some shoddy defense, and Black rebounded to retire 13 of the final 16 batters he faced before being chased from the game after back-to-back two-out base hits in the fifth.
Leading off the bottom of the first, Luis Arraez and Fernando Tatis Jr. got things started with back-to-back singles off Black and both came around to score on a sacrifice fly from the next batter, Jurickson Profar, despite them occupying first and second base.
When the runners bolted on Profar’s fly out to right, Mike Yastrzemski made an aggressive and ill-fated attempt to nab the lead runner at third. The throw was already past second base when rookie shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald cut it off and made the play’s most crucial error trying to recover and get Tatis advancing to second.
He made a quick, hard throw to rookie second baseman Marco Luciano, who let the ball get by him and roll all the way back to Yastrzemski in the right-field corner.
The next batter, Manny Machado, launched a breaking ball into the left-field seats, extending the Padres’ first-inning lead to 3-0. But Black got his revenge in their next battle, firing a fastball past the All-Star third baseman to end the third inning.
At 94.6 mph, it would have matched Black’s fourth-hardest pitch of the season. But it was only his fourth-hardest of the night, with his velocity was up across the board — 92.8 mph on his four-seamer (+0.9 mph) and 93.2 mph on his sinker (+1.2 mph).
Machado padded the Padres’ lead twice more, with a single off Sean Hjelle in the fifth to drive in one of the runners left on by Black and a second solo shot off Austin Warren in the seventh that made it 5-1 and tied him for the all-time home run lead in San Diego franchise history.
Offensively, the Giants were sulking along against Padres starter Michael King, who had taken no-hit bids into the seventh inning twice this season and seemed like he was pining for another until San Francisco’s No. 9 hitter, rookie Grant McCray, lined their first hit into left field with two down in the third.
The Giants finished with six hits, half coming from first or second-year players, as McCray went the opposite way for a second time and Heliot Ramos singled to start a fruitless bases-loaded opportunity in the fourth.
To crack the scoreboard, though, it took the work of a veteran, as Michael Conforto contributed their only run with a solo shot to lead off the sixth inning.
Nevertheless, Friday night offered a preview of what’s to come over the final three weeks of a season that started with much bigger aspirations than September silver linings. The starting lineup featured five players 25 or younger, plus one more on the mound in Black.
With his 4⅔ frames, Black increased the workload shouldered by Giants rookie pitchers to a league-leading 459 innings, already the most in one season in franchise history since 1975. Their rookie position players have logged only the 14th-most games of any team but contributed the league’s second-best OPS at .759 entering Friday.
“You prepare to go out there and win every game. Now, we’re going to do it a little differently,” Melvin said before the game. “We’re going to have younger guys in the lineup, which we’ve had here for a while. But the younger guys have also produced. …
“I think at this point in time there are some questions that need to be answered in terms of development that needs to take place going into next year, which probably wasn’t the case a couple weeks ago. So, that’s a little different. But it’s still the major leagues and every game we go out there, we prepare to win.”
Conforto’s home run was his 16th of the season — and the 13th that has come away from Oracle Park, where he owns a .650 OPS compared to an .814 mark on the road.
The second game of the series has the makings of a pitchers’ duel with RHP Logan Webb (11-9, 3.43) matched up against RHP Dylan Cease (12-10, 3.62). First pitch is schedule for 5:40 p.m.
