Tyler Mahle Finally Won a Game, and Casey Schmitt Made Sure It Counted
Seven innings from a guy who had not won since April, a three-run bomb from Schmitt, and a 4-2 Giants win over the Rockies that even came with a Vitello ejection for flavor.
One night after the bullpen coughed up a game to the worst team in baseball, the Giants came back to Oracle Park on Saturday and won one the normal way. Starter goes deep into the game, big swing breaks the tie, bullpen holds it. Giants 4, Rockies 2, in front of 35,190 people who have earned a quiet, uncomplicated win more than any fan base I can think of right now.
Let's start with Tyler Mahle, because the man has been living a cursed season. Before Saturday, Mahle had not won a game since April 22 against the Dodgers. That is not a typo. He went zero and five over nine starts in between, watched leads evaporate, watched run support vanish, and dragged a 1-8 record to the mound against Colorado. Then he went out and threw seven innings of one-run baseball, five hits, three walks, and left with a lead his teammates actually protected. He is 2-8 now, and if you think a record like that tells you what kind of year he has pitched, you have not been watching this team try to score runs.
The offense did its part in two bursts. Down 1-0 in the fifth, Bryce Eldridge doubled and Jesús Rodríguez doubled him home to tie it, which is the kind of sentence that should make you feel good about the future, because that is two young hitters manufacturing a run against a big-league starter. Then in the sixth, Heliot Ramos and Luis Arraez opened the inning with singles off Kyle Freeland, and Casey Schmitt walked up and buried a three-run homer, his 19th of the season. That was the ballgame. Schmitt has quietly turned himself into one of the only genuinely dangerous bats in this lineup, and 19 homers in this ballpark by July 11 is not a fluke. It is a hitter arriving.
The night even came with theater. Home plate umpire Lance Barksdale called a balk in the third that Tony Vitello did not care for, and Vitello let him hear about it until Barksdale ran him. Second ejection of the season for the rookie manager. I have been hard on Vitello in this space all year and I am not taking any of it back, but I will say this: on a team going nowhere, at least the man still cares enough in July to get tossed over a balk call.
The only sweat came late. JT Brubaker took over for Mahle and gave up a homer to Kyle Karros in the eighth to make it 4-2, but he settled down and finished the six-hitter for his first professional save. First one. On this roster, in this bullpen, a clean-enough two-inning finish deserves its own paragraph, because we all watched Friday night what happens when it goes the other way.
So the Giants are 40-55, and no, one win over the Rockies changes nothing about where this season is going. But there is a version of watching this team that is not miserable, and Saturday was it. Mahle got the win he has deserved for two months. Schmitt kept building his case as a real middle-of-the-order bat. Eldridge and Rodríguez stacked doubles. The kids did the scoring and the veterans did the pitching, and for one night that was enough. Sunday's finale sends Trevor McDonald and his 5.46 ERA out against Michael Lorenzen, who is 3-9 with a 6.46, which means the Giants have a real chance to take the series. Take it. In a season like this, take every single one of these you can get.
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