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Put the ball in play

MLB: Philadelphia Phillies at San Francisco Giants

Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images

Sometimes good things happen.

Put the ball in play.

It’s an adage we’ve all heard since our Little League days, usually accompanied by a comforting hand on the shoulder after a tough 0-fer.

Hey, at least you put the ball in play, son.”

“Yeah…but it’s T-Ball, dad.”


Looking beyond results or quality of contact, it’s comforting knowing you at least performed the essential task as a hitter: I hit the ball. Sometimes it’s all you can do.

The phrase’s virtues were expounded from the broadcast booth last night. Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow have been around the game long enough (and still recovering from and processing the conditions at Candlestick) to know how much of a headache a baseball in motion can be. 100+ MPH line drives are one thing, but defenses practice handling that kind of contact because that’s the kind of contact that will statistically hurt the most. Fielding well-struck grounders or deep flies may come with a higher expected batting average, but their paths are often predictable, allowing a fielder to stay in rhythm when approaching the ball and corralling it. But when someone talks about putting the ball in play they aren’t talking about scorchers or screamers, they’re talking about squibbers and high-hoppers and dying quails and flares and mile-high pops. Situational hitting at its most fundamental: Did you hit the ball? Did you make the defense make a play?

Hitting a rock with a stick is an odd thing. A weird collision of different textured and shaped surfaces with varying measurements of energy and matter that can produce some real unpredictable results. That’s the main attraction: it scratches some primitive itch. The first shepherd, bored out in the hills, who tossed a stone up in the air and hacked at it, finding it with the barrel of his rook, hearing the round note of the collision, watching the stone spin out into the beyond.

Put the baseball into the world, and who knows what will happen. The wind changes. The ground isn’t flat. To throw another aphorism at ya, to err is human. There’s nine flawed flesh bags out there overly-excited to chase after a moving ball and supremely capable of screwing things up. It might be a more straightforward ball in play, but the moment a human being gets involved (meaning: an idiot) all bets are off. A decision has to be made, a task performed. Sometimes they choose to do silly things, or awkward things, or well-intended but ill-advised things.

In the case of Monday’s series opener between the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies — a 3-1 win for the good guys — balls in play fueled the night’s scant offensive production.

Both starters Landen Roupp and lefty Cristopher Sánchez have been excellent at avoiding hard contact all season long and performed as advertised in their head-to-head match-up.

Though ultimately done in by pitch count after the 5th, Roupp mixed his pitches well. Despite getting just four whiffs from Philly hitters, he stole 25 strikes, including 16 with his sinker. He lacked the wipe-out stuff to dispatch opponents more efficiently, but he still did well to maintain count leverage, generate ground balls and avoid a lot of worrying traffic on the bases.

How Cristopher Sánchez is going to attack a hitter is no secret. The lefty has a dominant power change-up. It’s accrued a 9 Run Value already, putting his offspeed offering in the 99th percentile of the league. His mix is pretty much 40 - 40 sinker and change, with a cheeky slider on the slide to keep things fresh. But in a two-strike count, a hitter knows what is coming…and it’s still pretty much un-hittable.

The pitching lived up to the billing. Both starters surrendered a single run each, and both runs that came around to score were certainly not products of convincing contact. Neither team had a hit with runners in scoring position all game (15 ABs total).

The Giants scratched their lone run across in the 2nd. They loaded the bases with nobody out after Matt Chapman and Wilmer Flores both punched sinkers through the infield for singles, and Casey Schmitt, in his return from the IL and starting at second base, refused to bite at five consecutive offerings just missing the bottom of the zone. But Sánchez got back in the inning with a strikeout of Jung Hoo Lee (which has got to be one of the more uncomfortable at-bats left-on-left) that opened up a number of off-ramps. He had struck out a dozen in his previous win against the Giants in April and his 26.2 K% is in the 75th percentile — so carving his way through Luis Matos and Patrick Bailey seemed more than plausible. Or there’s the good ol’ ground ball. Opponents’ grounder rate off Sánchez teases 60%. An easy roller at an infielder would either produce an easy fielder’s choice out at home or an inning ending double play.

Off the bat, that’s exactly what Matos’s ground ball appeared to be. A slow hopper to the left of second base, right in the path of shortstop Trea Turner to field, toss to second, and initiate the double play...

PUT THE BALL IN PLAY and open yourself up to a kaleidoscope of strange and wonderful possibilities. In a 1-2 count, Sánchez executed a perfect change-up low and away and somehow Matos got enough of a chunk, allowing Turner — good ol’ Trea — to do his thing.

San Francisco nearly edged ahead at the expense of the Philly defense when Rafael Devers skied a fly ball to shallow left that started to do funny things. Second baseman Bryson Stott twisted and turned, trying to settle under it, before plummeting safely to the outfield grass between him and the charging right-fielder Nick Castellanos. Kuip, having lived that experience and holds both empathy and disdain for poor performance on the pop-up dance, quipped that the baseball was in the air for three-minutes. More like 6-seconds — still plenty of height for the wind to toss it around like a pair of shoes tumbling around a dryer.

But just as a disproportionate amount of breaks were going the Giants’ way, the world self-corrected, and because we live on a level playing field and exist in a karmic universe where balance and justice reign (...) “luck” — or whatever you want to call it — started to hold sway for the Phillies.

They certainly caught a break on a 107 MPH drive off the bat of Matt Chapman that knuckled in the air and sent center fielder Brandon Marsh spinning trying to reel it in. With a two-out jump, even Devers, who runs about as fast as a turtle with a groin strain, would’ve scored easily from first. He was halfway to home before he realized to pull up and return to third — the ball had skipped hard off the warning track, ricocheted off the padded corner of the wall in straightaway center before dropping into the visiting bullpen, out of play. It was the one hit of the game that deserved to bat in a run, and it didn’t. Marsh remained on his knees, offering up a humble prayer of thanks to the powers that be.



A friendly hop held the Giants’ lead to one in the 3rd, and another one helped the Phillies to tie it in the 5th.

This is how the hit in question was described in the game log: Bryson Stott doubles on a ground ball to second baseman Casey Schmitt, deflected by first baseman Wilmer Flores. This is how I’d describe it: Bryson Stott rolls routine grounder towards first baseman, Wilmer Flores, ball skips due to glitch in the matrix, kicking off phantom wrinkle in grass to avoid first baseman Wilmer Flores’s glove, then pinballs off the instep of first baseman Wilmer Flores’s foot into foul territory to be chased down by second baseman Casey Schmitt, Bryson Stott to 2nd, scorekeeper can’t decide on hit or error because it is neither, snaps official scorekeeping pencil in half and walks out of booth, official ruling pending.

Ball in play. The “double” would be the Philly’s only extra base hit of the evening, and Stott would come around to tie the game by advancing to third on a groundout before scoring on a wild pitch from Roupp.

The score remained knotted at one-run a piece until the 8th. Sánchez breezed through the 7th inning, while Ryan Walker, Joey Lucchessi and Tyler Rogers handled the next three frames for the Giants after Roupp’s departure.

With Sánchez out of the game in the 8th, the Phillies bullpen took over and things shifted again. The universe’s scales started to tilt back towards the Giants. Right-handed reliever Orion Kerkering lead-off the frame by hitting Willy Adames, and then out of nowhere Phil Cuzzi started to shower Chapman with gifts in the zone. Three straight fastballs all painted on the outside edge that could have easily been strikes 3, 4 and 5 were called balls.



A welcome back present from Cuzzi that Chapman didn’t take for granted. On the 7th pitch, he shot a fastball over the middle of the plate (because it had to be) through a hole in the right side of the infield, setting up runners at the corners. Kerkering, understandably confused about where the baseball should go, plunked Flores to load the bases for Casey Schmitt.

Schmitt was clearly happy to be back on the diamond. He had walked to set-up the Giants first run in the 2nd, he singled in the 6th, and with a chance to knock in the go-ahead run, Schmitt drove a heavy sinker from Kerkering directly into the ground. But you know what — he put the ball in play, and that ball in play, in another 2-strike count, was the perfect amount of weird to get the job done. It forced Turner just enough to his left to take away a play at home. And with the pulled-in infield, getting the out at second was awkward and slow in developing, providing enough time for Schmitt to hustle down the line and prevent the double play.

Legging it down to first proved consequential because with two outs, the infield could’ve decamped from the cut of the grass. But because the bases were still loaded with less than two outs, they had to stay in, forcing Bryce Harper to make another awkward play on another ball on the ground in an attempt to prevent San Francisco’s third run from scoring.

Three ground balls — all in two-strike counts, all hit right at infielders — but just funky enough for three runs.

Put the ball in play, kids.

Disclaimer: This is also what could happen if you put the ball in play after you battle for 13 pitches, fouling off 8 offerings in a two-strike count, and absolutely deserve a base hit.

The world owes you nothing.

Source: https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2...-landen-roupp-put-the-ball-in-play-mlb-scores
 
7/8 Gamethread: Giants vs. Phillies

2223575596.0.jpg

Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images

Robbie Ray vs. Taijuan Walker

The San Francisco Giants continue this three-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies tonight from Oracle Park.

Taking the mound for the Giants will be left-hander Robbie Ray, who enters tonight’s game with a 2.68 ERA, 3.45 FIP, with 117 strikeouts to 39 walks in 107.1 innings pitched. His last start was in the Giants’ 7-2 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday, in which he allowed two runs on three hits with seven strikeouts and a walk in nine innings.

He’ll be facing off against Phillies right-hander Taijuan Walker, who enters tonight’s game with a 3.64 ERA, 4.39 FIP, with 46 strikeouts to 22 walks in 54.1 innings pitched. His last appearance was in the Phillies’ 6-4 loss to the San Diego Padres last Wednesday, in which he struck out one and walked one in two and two thirds innings.


Game #93


Who: San Francisco Giants (50-42) vs. Philadelphia Phillies (53-38)

Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California

When: 6:45 p.m. PT

Regional broadcast: NBC Sports Bay Area

National broadcast: n/a

Radio: KNBR 680 AM/104.5 FM, KSFN 1510 AM

Source: https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2...illies-how-to-watch-robbie-ray-taijuan-walker
 
Baseball America ties Giants to prep shortstop prospects in 2025 MLB Draft

Gavin Kilen NCAA BASEBALL: JUN 01 Division I Regional - Wake Forest vs Tennessee

Photo by Bryan Lynn/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Carlos Collazo tied the Giants to several high school shortstop prospects in his latest mock draft.

The San Francisco Giants predictions 2025 MLB Draft . While Keith Law speculated that they would struggle to pass on UC Santa Barbara right-handed starting pitcher Tyler Bremner, Carlos Collazo of Baseball America tied the Giants to a different group of players in his latest mock draft.

“I’ve been hearing a lot of prep shortstops here with the Giants, who, like the Rangers, could also be looking for a bat,” Collazo wrote. “[Daniel] Pierce, Steele Hall, Kayson Cunningham and Gavin Kilen are the top high school shortstops available. There’s some uncertainty about which of those shortstops are the next up, and I don’t think there’s any real consensus—it seems to vary more from team to team.”

Daniel Pierce, who Collazo has the Giants selecting in his mock, is a Georgia-native who has a chance to be an above-average defensive shortstop alongside a carrying hit tool and speed. Cunningham is considered less likely to stick at shortstop, but has elite barrel control and plus speed. Hall has the most exceptional tool of the group, truly elite speed and athleticism that gives him true Gold Glove defensive potential. That said, there are more questions about Hall’s ability to enough offensively.

Kilen is incorrectly listed as a prep shortstop by Collazo. It seems more likely that Collazo simply included an extra name in his list. However, in case Kilen is tied to the Giants, he is an offense-first infielder. Kilen hit .357/.441/.671 with 15 home runs and more walks (30) than strikeouts (27) with Tennessee this season. Kilen split his time between second base and shortstop this past season, but is largely expected to be forced to stick at the keystone as a pro.

It’s possible that the Giants being tied to prep shortstops could signal a more complex strategy that involves trying to convince a prep shortstop to agree to an above-slot deal before the draft in attempt to fall to one of San Francisco’s later picks. For example, the Giants were tied to prep shortstop Walker Martin leading up to the 2023 draft, with many prognosticators predicting they would select him with their first-round pick.

Instead, the Giants had planned to take advantage of Martin’s injury history and limited experience against premium competition to float him to their second-round pick. They drafted Bryce Eldridge in the first round, agreeing to a below-slot deal, and then added Walker Martin in the second round, paying him a $3 million signing bonus in line with the slot for a late first-round pick.

However, the Giants lost their second and fifth-round picks as a result of signing shortstop Willy Adames last offseason. Not only does that take away San Francisco’s picks, it also gives them far less financial flexibility in the draft pool spending era.

Source: https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2...a-daniel-pierce-steele-hall-kayson-cunningham
 
SF Giants follow up memorable win with loss they’d rather forget

Philadelphia Phillies v San Francisco Giants

Justin Verlander fell to 0-7 Wednesday against the Phillies. | Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

The Phillies rocked the Giants for 13 runs and held them to four hits in a victory so complete that Mike Yastrzemski had to take the mound for an inning. And also get rocked.

The good vibes from Tuesday’s game-winning inside-the-park home run by Patrick Bailey lasted less than 24 hours. The Philadelphia Phillies scored four runs off Justin Verlander in the first six innings, then blew the game open against relievers Tristan Beck and Scott Alexander, who may not be long for the big league roster. Even Mike Yastrzemski took damage, giving up two runs in his second career appearance on the mound in a 13-0 San Francisco Giants loss.

The game was so bad that the SF Giants NBC Sports Bay Area X account couldn’t find a single highlight to post. The team’s official account ignored the game entirely apart from the final score. No one involved with the Giants wanted to leave any permanent record of what happened Wednesday afternoon.

Verlander fell to 0-7 as a Giant, though he really didn’t pitch all that badly. He struck out five Phillies in his first three innings and the first earned run came after Alec Bohm reached on an infield single and went to second on a Matt Chapman error, which came after first baseman Wilmer Flores completely missed his throw.


Justin Verlander's 2Ks in the 3rd.

5Ks thru 3. pic.twitter.com/EaYUQNk8Hp

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) July 9, 2025

Bohm would go on to score on a J.T. Realmuto single.


JT gets us started! pic.twitter.com/nB07f9Pd2w

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) July 9, 2025

In the 4th, the Giants old friend Bryce Harper, who didn’t sign with the Giants in 2019 because the team was forcing out Bruce Bochy, led off with his 10th home run of the season.


How 'bout an oppo taco? pic.twitter.com/wUZ3bc4pXo

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) July 9, 2025

Harper had a massive game, going 4-for-6 with a home run and three doubles off three different pitchers. Somehow the only pitcher to hold him hitless was Yaz.

In the 5th, Verlander got in trouble when Chapman drew another tough error on what could have been an inning-ending double play on another errant-but-catchable throw. But after Trea Turner stole second to give the Phillies two runners in scoring position, Verlander got Kyle Schwarber to fly out to deep right to end the inning.

Meanwhile, Phillies starter Jesus Luzardo (8-5) was shutting the Giants down. He went seven innings, giving up three hits and walking one, while striking out seven Giants. The closest thing to a rally the Giants had came in the second inning when Wilmer Flores singled and Casey Schmitt walked. Then Luzardo struck out Jung Hoo Lee and Luis Matos, and retired the final 10 batters he faced before leaving after seven innings.

The game got out of hand starting in the top of the 6th, though since the Giants got only one hit the rest of the way, it didn’t ultimately matter. Harper led off with a double, then a wild pitch and a Nick Castellanos single brought him home. Castellanos reached for an 88 MPH slider out of the strike zone, and the unlucky Verlander gave up another run.


Nick for another! pic.twitter.com/jHS4RbZ6uU

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) July 9, 2025

Then Castellanos stole second, catcher Andrew Knizner threw the ball away, and Max Kepler brought him home with a sac fly.

That ended Verlander’s afternoon, and after a solid inning from Joey Lucchesi, Beck came in to get hammered. He gave up two hits Tuesday night in his first big league appearance in over three weeks, but Wednesday was a disaster.

Harper led off with a double and the next four Phillies followed with singles. Bohm’s RBI single bounced through the middle, Realmuto (3-for-5, two RBIs) knocked in the Phillies’ sixth run with a line-drive single, and the first out Beck recorded was a sacrifice fly.


Small ball pic.twitter.com/8x9ZRkKzq1

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) July 9, 2025

Just Tacked on another pic.twitter.com/kDzwegZGOx

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) July 9, 2025

Beck’s final line was 0.1 IP, 5 hits, and 6 runs, all earned. His ERA jumped to 8.10 for the season.

Scott Alexander came after Beck walked the bases loaded, and after an RBI groundout from Turner, Kyle Schwarber hit his second home run of the series, 29th of the season, and the 313th of his career, more than Pudge Rodriguez, Edgar Martinez, and Al Simmons. Watch out, Reggie Smith, Jeromy Burnitz, and Ron Cey! Both Phillies home runs were opposite-field laser shots, a departure from Schwarber’s massive Splash Hit from Tuesday night.


SCHWARBS SAID SEE YA pic.twitter.com/m9YV4W6CFG

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) July 9, 2025

In the 9th, trailing 11-0, Yastrzemski showed off an unconventional arsenal of pitches, including a 56 MPH slider, a 66 MPH curveball, and a fastball that touched 77 MPH, so slow that it registered as a changeup. But after loading the bases, Yaz got two groundouts, albeit for RBIs, and got Harper to pop out. When Brett Wisely forced Chapman to end the game, the Giants all seemed relieved to get a day off before welcoming the Dodgers to town Friday.

The good news is that a 13-0 loss still just counts as one loss in the standings, even if Wednesday’s loss felt like two or three. The Giants are still 6-3 in July, still five games back in the NL West, and still holding on to the final wild-card berth in the National League. And hey, the bullpen is rested!

Except for Yaz. He may have thrown only 21 pitches, but when you’re sending in heat like that, sometimes you need a whole year off between relief appearances.

Source: https://www.mccoveychronicles.com/2...-memorable-win-with-forgettable-loss-phillies
 
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