MILWAUKEE — It was a frustrating evening to be a pitcher Tuesday at American Family Field.
The two starters, Logan Webb and Tobias Myers, had been about as good as it gets in recent weeks, but both were out the game by the end of the sixth inning as the Giants and Brewers traded home runs in the opening salvo of their three-game series.
Mike Yastrzemski’s two-run blast to right field in the seventh was the Giants’ (67-66) third homer of the night — the fifth overall by both sides — and proved to be decisive in a much-needed 5-4 win to keep pace with the Braves (72-60), who maintained their 5 1/2 game advantage for the final Wild Card.
It was San Francisco’s fourth straight one-run game after dropping two of three such contests over the weekend against the Mariners.
“They all have a personality of their own, but we were very aware that every night feels like this,” manager Bob Melvin said. ” … I don’t want to say you get immune to them, but you certainly get used to the intensity of every inning, every pitch and knowing that you can’t let down, if you give up a run you have to come back and do it again.
“We’ve kind of formed that during this stretch, yet it would be nice to have a game where we didn’t have to use our best relievers every game.”
Once again, it was Ryan Walker and Tyler Rogers who got the job done over the final two innings, but the Giants needed even more out of their bullpen. They used four relievers behind Webb, who lasted only two batters into the sixth after none of the Giants’ three starters made it beyond the fourth during their weekend series in Seattle.
Webb removed his cap and wiped his brow after his 14th pitch to William Contreras in the first inning landed in foul territory, just beyond the reach of first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr., then put the Brewers designated hitter on-base with his 15th pitch of the plate appearance. Those 15 pitches were the most that Webb has thrown in a plate appearance in his entire career. He shouted an expletive into his glove that was audible throughout the stadium when he finally returned to the dugout after exhausting 33 pitches to record his first three outs of the night.
The Giants’ workhorse at the top of their rotation understood the circumstances, and his frustration grew with each putaway pitch that didn’t get the job done.
“I wanted to give them as much as I could, unfortunately I just kind of dug myself into a hole in the first inning,” said Webb, who went on to allow four runs on a pair of homers over five-plus frames. “Long at-bats and a long inning. I thought I was going to get through six, but that sixth, I didn’t do very good that inning.”
Even more enraging than losing a batter on the 15th pitch has to be balking a runner into prime scoring position, which is how the Giants opened a 1-0 lead in the third inning against Myers, who entered the game with the majors’ lowest ERA since June 1 but allowed three runs for just the second time over that span.
After Grant McCray singled and stole second, Myers was called for a balk when his cleat appeared to get stuck during his delivery. That put McCray in position to score on a groundout from Wade. San Francisco tacked on two more runs against Myers with solo shots from McCray and Matt Chapman.
“It’s funny,” McCray deadpanned. “I was laughing on my way to third, like, ‘I got you.'”
McCray got him even more in the fifth, sending a 422-foot blast midway up the second deck in right field, a swing that immediately followed a leaping catch by center fielder Blake Perkins to rob Thairo Estrada of a go-ahead home run. Instead, it was the Giants’ rookie center fielder who gave them a brief 3-2 advantage in the fifth.
The Giants asked for a crew chief review to see if Perkins trapped Estrada’s ball against the wall on the other side of the outfield fence but the out was upheld.
“I felt like they should’ve gave him the homer, honestly,” McCray said. “When he came back in, I was like, ‘I got you, Papi, I got your back, don’t worry.'”
The Giants taking the lead for good required a third homer, their final long ball of the night coming from Yastrzemski to take the lead for good. After falling behind 0-2 against reliever Joel Payamps in the seventh inning, Yastrzemski laid off two offspeed offerings outside the strike zone, then drove a 2-2 fastball into the right-field seats for a two-run shot that flipped a one-run deficit into a one-run advantage.
“You get leads in the game in the game, you’ve got to keep them; that’s the job of the starting pitcher,” Webb said. “I did a bad job of that today, but the boys had my back.”
Webb faced two batters into the sixth but didn’t retire either, departing the game after serving up his second homer and allowing the Brewers to take a 4-3 lead. It was Webb’s shortest start since July 25 in Los Angeles, which was also the last time he allowed more than three runs. Webb owned a 0.96 ERA in five starts since, the best mark in the majors over that span, and had gone at least seven in four of those outings.
His homerless streak dated back even further to July 20, a league-leading stretch of 43 1/3 innings entering the night, but he served up a pair of gargantuan blasts to Jackson Chourio and Willy Adames. Webb entered the game with one of the lowest home run rates in the majors — his 0.36 HR/9 led baseball entering play — and hadn’t allowed multiple any of his starts this season.
Chourio, the Brewers’ rookie outfielder, took out a piece of the center-field scoreboard with his 449-foot moonshot that opened a 2-1 lead in the third inning. Adames squared up his two-run shot in the fifth even harder — at 110.8 mph vs. Chourio’s 109.7 mph reading — flipping his bat as he watched the ball travel an estimated 435 feet over the Brewers’ bullpen in left-center field.
“His line gets skewed when you give up four hits the entire time you’re out there and two of them end up being two-run homers,” Melvin said. “He pitched well.”
The Giants’ bullpen, meanwhile, answered the call of duty despite taking on a heavy workload in three tight, high-leverage games over the weekend.
Rogers was required to record the final out of the seventh, then pitched around a leadoff single in a scoreless eighth. Walker was prepared to pitch multiple innings if needed as well, warming in the eighth before entering in the ninth to record a three-out save, his fourth of the season.
Both relievers already top the league leaderboard in appearances and appeared in two of their three games in Seattle, with Walker working two frames Friday.
“It’s not like we haven’t been playing these games every single day,” Melvin said. “It’s uncomfortable having to use guys one-plus (innings), especially guys that are top of the league in appearances, but when it gets down to a situation like that … look, they’ve been so good. We feel good when they’re in the game and we have a lead. It usually works out for us.”
The Giants were one of three teams to designate Myers for assignment in 2022 before he latched on with the Brewers, where he has been one of the majors’ most effective starters in the second half. In his three-week stint with the Sacramento River Cats, he crossed paths with Heliot Ramos and Sean Hjelle.
Webb’s 15-pitch battle with Contreras in the first inning was one of the longest of the season. The Twins’ Manuel Margot worked a 16-pitch plate appearance against the Rangers’ Andrew Heaney on Aug. 16, which surpassed a 15-pitch at-bat from Nick Castellanos on Aug. 4 for the longest of the season.
LHP Kyle Harrison (7-5, 4.00) takes the ball against RHP Freddy Peralta (8-7, 3.86) in the second game of the series. With a couple of recent off days and Harrison already at a career-high in innings (117), the Giants opted to give the 23-year-old rookie nine days between starts. First pitch is scheduled for 5:10 p.m. PT.
