SAN FRANCISCO — Technically, both starting pitchers went more than four innings without allowing a hit Wednesday afternoon at Oracle Park.
But, in the Giants’ case, it only came after their guy had put them in a five-run hole.
Logan Webb rebounded to retire 13 in a row at one point, but Dylan Cease left the Giants guessing from the get-go and kept them quiet for even longer.
The Blue Jays’ starter had five runs to play with when he took the mound and didn’t mess around, retiring the first 14 hitters he faced and not yielding a hit until the ninth.
One hit didn’t matter much in the grand scheme of a demoralizing 10-0 loss.
On the other hand, never has a single meant so much.
A day after they were stymied by a pitcher they left unprotected in the Rule 5 draft, the Giants nearly found a new level of futility against a pitcher they decided against pursuing this past winter.
In the 26-year history of the Giants’ waterfront ballpark, the home crowd had never gone home without witnessing a hit from the home team, and Heliot Ramos made sure that continued to be the case, lining the third pitch of the ninth — Cease’s 118th — into center field for a single.
Cease, who signed a seven-year, $210 million deal in Toronto, struck out 11, walked three and walked off the mound to a standing ovation from fans of both sides after surrendering his first and only hit.
The Giants never had a chance to climb out of the 5-0 hole they were in after the top of the first.
Coming off the worst start of his career, Webb immediately put himself in a bases-loaded jam in the top of the first, allowing four of the first five batters to reach. Okamoto cashed them all in on one swing, giving the Blue Jays a 5-0 lead before the Giants even came to bat.
The start mirrored the way Webb’s lasting outing began, yielding three early runs to the Rockies en route to a 15-3 loss, but in this case, Webb didn’t allow the damage to snowball.
He won a nine-pitch at-bat against Andres Gimenez to begin the second, leaving at 41 through his first four outs, then required only 65 more to record the next 17 to complete seven frames.
For that matter, the Blue Jays only put one ball in play that would qualify as hard contact. It was Okamoto’s grand slam that clanked off the top of the arcade in right field. At 328 feet, according to Statcast, it would have been a home run in only two parks: Oracle and Yankee Stadium.
What it means
Falling more than 15 games below .500 for the first time this year, the Giants found a new way to hit a lowpoint in this forsaken season.
One of the more reliable predictors of a win this season had been when San Francisco was at risk of going 16 games under water. The Giants had been 7-0 when their record was 15 below.
They reached another new low, at 38-54, their furthest below .500 since the end of 2018.
Who’s hot
Certainly nobody on the Giants, who failed to muster more than one hit while dropping their third series in a row. Before Ramos ended the no-hit bid with three outs to go, Willy Adames had together their best at-bat of the game to avoid being victims of a perfect game.
He fell behind 1-2 in the fifth but spoiled two strikes on the outside corner and laid off three pitches outside the zone to draw a walk as the Giants’ first base runner of the game.
Most of the other Giants who went to two strikes against Cease became his strikeout victims.
Adames nearly brought an end to the no-hitter, too, his next time up, bouncing a soft ground ball up the middle. Second baseman Ernie Clement, however, ranged behind the bag and threw across his body to retire Adames for the final out of the seventh.
Adames threw his helmet into the ground out of frustration, and in a sign of how things were going, it ricocheted right back into his face.
Who’s not
After yielding just three total earned runs across five June starts, lowering his season ERA to 3.09, Webb has surrendered 12 runs in his first two starts of July, raising his ERA back to 3.86.
Webb’s last two starts can pretty safely be described as the worst back-to-back outings of his career. It’s the first time in 196 times taking the mound that he has allowed at least five earned runs in consecutive starts, and the 12 total earned runs are also his most in any two-start span.
The slump from their staff ace comes at an unfortunate time, given their staff-wide struggles of late. The loss was the fifth time in the Giants’ past nine games that they have allowed at least five runs, with their pitchers posting a 6.66 ERA that is the 27th in the majors during that span.
Up next
The Giants are listing what would be Landen Roupp’s turn in the rotation as TBA for the first game of their final series before the All-Star break. With Carson Whisenhunt already in the clubhouse on the taxi squad, he would presumably be an option to start against the Rockies.
San Francisco pushed Robbie Ray back a day, lining him up to start Friday before Tyler Mahle and Trevor McDonald get the ball in the Giants’ final two games before the break.
