An exhausting trip that has included 15- and 13-run wins but also a pair of walk-off losses will end with a night game more than 2,000 miles from home when the San Francisco Giants wrap up a three-game set Sunday against the Chicago Cubs.
The series has featured polar-opposite games that have resulted in wins for each team. The Giants romped to an 18-3 victory on Friday before the Cubs rallied for one run apiece in the ninth and 10th innings to walk off with a 3-2 triumph in the rematch.
Win or lose Sunday, the Giants already have accomplished a rare feat in their 10-game trek to Denver (Colorado Rockies), Milwaukee and Chicago. The Giants have hit grand slams in all three locations, becoming just the third team in major league history to do that on a three-city trip, joining the 1983 California Angels and 2023 Houston Astros.
There were no such fireworks Saturday, when the Giants lost for the fifth time this season when leading in the ninth inning or later, having gone up 2-1 in the top of the ninth.
One out away from a fifth win on the trip, San Francisco manager Tony Vitello lamented his tired team’s poor execution in the 10th as the difference in the game.
“You’ve got to get that (automatic) runner over to third base, then get your knock (hit),” he said after the Giants never advanced Eric Haase off second base in the top of the 10th. “Then we ended up not getting the knock.”
It took the Cubs only four pitches in the last of the 10th to do what the Giants failed to accomplish, when Michael Busch lashed a single to right field, sending their automatic runner, Dansby Swanson, to third. When Giants right fielder Victor Bericoto had the ball roll under his glove in his haste to stop Swanson from scoring — it appeared Swanson was being held up at third base — the Cubs were gifted the win.
Interestingly, Chicago manager Craig Counsell announced before the game that Swanson would be given “a few days away from the game” in an effort to work through a batting slump that has seen his average fall to .180. He wound up scoring the winning run Saturday without grabbing a bat, getting used as a pinch runner at second base in the 10th.
Counsell indicated Swanson would be getting Sunday “off” as well — and possibly more.
“We haven’t seen many signs of positive results,” Counsell said of pregame hitting sessions Swanson has been receiving, “but let’s try to commit to a couple more days of good work and maybe cement some of those thoughts and habits and then take it into a game.”
In a trip finale pushed to nighttime in order to be nationally televised, the Giants, who will return home to start a new series Monday against Washington, will start right-hander Trevor McDonald (2-3, 4.50 ERA).
He has never faced the Cubs in his career.
The 25-year-old has allowed three or fewer runs in five of his six starts this season. He started an 8-3 loss at Milwaukee on Tuesday, allowing three runs in five innings.
Right-hander Jameson Taillon (2-5, 5.13 ERA) will start for the Cubs on Sunday. He is 1-1 with a 6.88 ERA in four career starts against the Giants.
The 34-year-old rebounded from a winless May to throw 6 1/3 effective innings in a 2-1 home loss to the Athletics on Tuesday. He got a hard-luck defeat after allowing only two runs.
– Field Level Media
