Giants drop fifth straight as disastrous road trip continues with loss to Rays
On "Giants Postgame Live," Kylen Mills and Alex Pavlovic discuss San Francisco's 5-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday at Tropicana Field.
Giants drop fifth straight as disastrous road trip continues with loss to Rays originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
The Giants' season rolls into May, but unfortunately, it's been more of the same.
Well, not the usual gem from starter Landon Rook.
The offense couldn't get anything going, yet again, at Tropicana Field.
They do put up one run, but it's way too few.
The Giants fall to the Rays 5-1, as they drop the series down in Southwest Florida as well.
Hello, and welcome to Toyota Giants Post Game Live.
So happy to have you here.
Alongside our Giants insider, Alex Pavlovic, I'm Kylen Mills.
Kick back, this is a safe space.
It's been a tough stretch.
There's no other way to put it here, Alex.
The offense is anemic yet again today.
Just one run scored so far in this series.
Something has to give at some point, right?
You think.
I think we- Let me pause a little before saying that.
Oof you know, I think, I think in the pregame show, you said something like, "You can't get any worse."
Yeah.
But sometimes it can.
Sorry.
And, and it's not that the losses are necessarily worse than other ones, it's just- Yeah it's ongoing.
And I think you saw the frustration there.
Mm-hmm.
great job by the directors there at the end, showing just basically every marquee player on this team, from Chapman to Devers, Ademas, the frustration, how upset they all are, and, and I think they're lost right now.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, it's just a group that doesn't know how to get out of this.
We have seen this before.
It's a little bit easier, I think, in the middle of a season, and it's never easy for this to happen, but it's a little bit easier when you have something to lean back on, and you can look up and go, "I have 12 home runs.
Maybe I'm slumping right now."
Right.
Basically, nobody here, I mean, there's a couple guys who, who are probably happy with their first five weeks, but for the most part, I think everybody looks at the numbers on the scoreboard and is really frustrated.
Yeah.
And you look up, and you see the record, you see the record on this road trip, outscored 24 to eight on this road trip, and most of those runs came in one game that they lost to late.
So, it's one of those stretches where nothing's going right, and I don't, I don't know how to be a therapist right now for anyone watching.
I There's really nothing to say.
We're all in this together.
That's all I'll say.
But the Giants fall to 13 and 20.
They've now lost five straight, which is a season high, and matches a season high for losing streaks going back to all of last season.
Let's get to our Daily Jackpot, brought to you by River Rock Casino, which is going to dig deeper into some of the numbers and what we've seen during this five-game losing streak, which has taken place on an East Coast swing, first in Philadelphia, now in the Tampa Bay area.
And the struggles have just continued.
Five straight losses, the runs per game has somehow gotten worse from where we were at when we started the day.
they've been shut out two times on this road trip.
The run differential, minus 16.
Pavs, this is your 15th season covering this team.
Yeah.
You've kind of seen it all.
Like, what do you make of all of this?
I know you just talked a lot about it, but, like, how do they turn things around?
I know there's no easy answer, but we've gotta keep moving forward.
They have to keep grinding.
Unfortunately, I feel like I see this specific stretch, like, every season since 2021- Mm-hmm including last year in July and August.
Sure.
last week of July was brutal.
So they, they've been through this before.
I think what stands out, you show the overall numbers there.
Mm-hmm.
We'll get to the Elliott near home run, should've been a home run.
Yeah.
But still, no home runs on this road trip so far.
Mm-hmm.
It's a decent place to hit there in Tampa.
Philly's a great place to hit.
so they haven't been able to do that.
And then we talked about this on the pregame, there's no speed at all.
And you see, look, the last run didn't matter in this game, but you do see Tampa on the other side trying to use their speed, trying to make things happen.
Tony said pregame in, in his interview out there, he was like, "It's hard to even try to run or bunt when you don't have guys getting on base."
Right.
They're second to last in the big leagues on on base percentage.
And then again, I, I'm gonna keep harping on this number, 'cause it's so jarring to me.
I mean, they're on pace to be one of the worst teams ever in terms of drawing walks, and the worst team in franchise history, at least, unless you go back to, like, pre-World War I, which- Mm-hmm we don't need to.
That's like a whole different kind of baseball.
We'd like to not do that.
And today, one walk.
I mean, it, it's, again- Mm-hmm you have a bunch of relievers out there, and some of these guys, you know, these guys have decent numbers.
Jax is, is, certainly he's transitioning into being a starter, and he has good stuff.
But, to just not put any pressure on him at all, and constantly just be waiting for a home run that doesn't come, or a string of four singles that doesn't come, I think the walks is just such a crucial thing that they're not doing, and it's day after day after day.
One run scored through the first two games of this series, and just one walk drawn, to your point.
Yeah.
Just not gonna be good enough to win a series.
I do wanna ask you real quickly about the pitching staff, though.
we're gonna talk more about Landon Rook specifically in just a moment.
but do you feel like they're giving them chances to win games?
Like, does this fall solely on the offense?
Oh, I think they're giving I mean, Landon I thought was fine, and, and there was some frustration shown from him, and I think that was because there was some soft contact.
And, you know- Yeah he does have those blips where he loses command, and we saw that a little bit near the end of his outing, but there was a lot of soft contact as well.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, we saw the stat in the notes today.
Like, it's kinda jarring.
He's the only pitcher in Major League Baseball who hasn't allowed a barrel yet- Right in terms of throwing as many pitches as he has.
So he's been good.
I thought he was, you know, not his best today, ends up getting charged with four earned, but thought he threw better than that.
Mm-hmm.
You know, it's one of those things where you have to give these guys a lead and let them put the, the pedal down a little bit, and also let Tony turn to the guys who have pitched well out of the bullpen, Caleb Kilian- Mm-hmm Eric Miller.
maybe you get Walker back in that sixth, seventh range instead of the ninth, and he's been good in that, in, in those innings.
So, the offense is just making it impossible for them to do that, and, and you end up with days like this.
And not that these guys pitch poorly by any means, gave up one run out of the bullpen, but- Yeah it's Gage, it's Baraki, it's Santos, who just came back.
So they don't even have opportunities, really.
They did in Philly a little bit and blew it, but for the most part, you go back the last month, they just haven't even really had chances to be like, "Hey, Kilian, you get the seventh.
Walker, you get the eighth.
Miller, you get the ninth," however you wanna set it up.
They, they're just not even doing that.
Yeah, I just think for the starters, it has to be a lot of pressure knowing that you essentially have to go out there and throw a gem- Yeah because you're going to get no run support day in and day out.
And the starting staff, and as you mentioned, the bullpen's been pretty good, they've been giving them chances, but the offense just continues to struggle.
Let's talk about one of the more exciting moments for the Giants in this game that was a bizarre situation that took place in the second inning.
I say exciting because this ball coming off the bat of Elliott Ramos certainly looked good, and that's what's hot, presented by Service Champions.
Ramos hits a high fly ball deep to center field.
It initially looks like it's going out the yard.
Rays outfielder, Cedric Mullins, bounces off the wall to catch it as it suddenly dropped.
We're gonna watch this back again, and watch the pitcher's reaction.
Griffin Jax looks like he believes it's gone here.
What happened, Pavs?All I need to see is his reaction, and we'll show the center fielder here, who looked like he was about to climb the wall.
And you briefly see him look into the stands even, 'cause he, he thinks this ball is gone.
And then he actually, Cedric Mullins, he touches the wall and then comes back.
And you saw some confusion from Elliott, and he was- Mm-hmm laughing a little bit.
I think he thought maybe Mullins tried to deke him, and then they go to break, and we come back, and everyone's trying to figure out what happened.
And I, I would say that's all I need to see there.
Not seeing there, not having a camera view of those catwalks, which is kind of crazy in 2026.
Yeah.
Like, all of us have, like, six cameras at our homes, and they don't have You know, put a Ring camera on the catwalk there- Yeah or something.
Figure something out.
Right.
Like, I don't know.
Put, put something up there that, like Our producer was saying, like, "Put some chalk up there so the ball hits it- and you see a puff of dust."
So I, figure something out.
But I do think the reaction's all you need to see there, and you did see And I, I've gotten to know Frank a little bit.
Mm-hmm.
He's not, like, an outrageous, like- Sure he's not gonna go out there and argue, I think, unless he saw something.
So I do think the Giants were probably correct there.
And Elliott, I mean, you just look at the numbers.
108 off the bat, 33-degree launch angle.
Like, that looked to everybody like a home run, including Cedric Mullins, including Griffin Jax.
but something weird happened there.
Something weird definitely happened.
Adrian Houser, director of pitching, Frank Anderson, both ejected from the game as a result of words that were exchanged with the umpire.
The Giants believe the ball hit something hanging from the ceiling, whether it be a catwalk, metal, something, but ultimately the call on the field stood that it was a caught ball.
It wasn't out for the Giants.
And I feel like that's just a microcosm of the season at this point.
They cannot get any breaks anywhere, it seems.
Yeah, and they did have more hard-hit balls today than the Rays did.
So they're not getting the breaks either.
So there, there is I think that adds to the frustration and, I think that's when you see someone like Frank.
And Adrian Houser's not e- Like, we've seen, gotten to know him a little bit.
Yeah.
Like, he's not, not like Madison Bumgarner.
Like, he's not easy to get mad at, so- Right.
He's also not a huge hothead, yeah yeah.
So, to see those two guys argue, I think both of them probably from the top step there saw something.
And, again, I think you just go back to Cedric Mullins.
That reaction is, like, crystal clear.
Mm-hmm.
He thought that ball was gone.
He was trying to maybe climb the wall- Yep try to get up there.
But, bad luck in, in a really strange You know, a lot's happened there at Tampa.
They had to rebuild that whole roof.
Right.
So there's a lot going on.
But, this off-season, you know, Major League Baseball maybe, there's a lot of money in this sport.
Yes.
Maybe throw a little bit over there and say, "Let's get some new cameras."
Yep.
"Let's figure out some of these angles."
I, it's really hard to believe that there just was no angle- It really is of that ball falling straight down.
Yeah, crazy.
There's no camera that was pointing in that general direction that could clearly show what exactly happened to that ball.
But I think that a lot of the reactions tell the story that the Giants should have had a run on the board, and would've definitely liked it at that point in the game, as it was still very close.
But ultimately, they fall short five to one.
