Giants 7, Angels 6 (F/10): Devers Does It Twice, and the Bullpen Nearly Ruins It Again
Rafael Devers opened the scoring with a two-run homer and closed it with a walk-off single in the tenth. In between, a five-run lead nearly disappeared, because of course it did. Giants win 7-6, snap a five-game skid, and climb to 43-60.
Somebody up there decided the Giants had suffered enough for one week. After getting swept in Kansas City and losing five straight, this team needed exactly the kind of night it got: a fast start, a near-total collapse, and Rafael Devers cleaning up the mess at the end anyway. Final score 7-6 in ten innings, and honestly, given how this stretch has gone, we will take the ugly version.
Devers set the tone before some of us had finished parking. First inning, two on, he turned on a Grayson Rodriguez pitch and put it 362 feet into the left field seats, 2-1 Giants before the Angels had even settled into the visitors' dugout. Two innings later Casey Schmitt made it a laugher, a three-run shot to left that chased nobody but felt like it should have, 5-1 Giants after three. Logan Webb was cruising. This looked like the blowout this team has owed itself since the All-Star break.
Then, inevitably, it stopped being that game. The Angels clawed a run back in the fifth on a Tyler Heineman triple and a Mike Trout sacrifice fly, 5-3, still very much in hand. Webb finished six innings with four runs allowed, not his sharpest but plenty good enough, and the pen took it from there. That is when it got interesting, and not in a fun way. Daniel Susac's sac fly in the seventh made it 6-4 and felt like the finishing touch. Instead, Jason Foley walked out for the eighth and gave it right back, a two-out, two-run homer to Vaughn Grissom that tied the game at 6-6 and turned a comfortable evening into a stress test.
Give the bullpen credit for the part that actually worked: Dylan Smith, Erik Miller and Caleb Kilian combined for three scoreless innings around the Foley blowup, and Kilian's scoreless tenth is what put the ball back in the lineup's hands. Because of course this had to go to extras. Of course the automatic runner had to be involved. Jesus Rodriguez started the tenth at second, moved to third on a walk, and scored the winning run when Devers lined a single to left. Two RBIs and two runs scored for Devers on the night, bookending it perfectly: homer to start it, single to finish it, and a five-game losing streak dead in the water.
Bryce Eldridge walked twice and scored twice, Luis Arraez went 3-for-5, and Drew Gilbert added two hits off the bench, proof there is still a lineup in there capable of doing damage when it wants to. The concerning part remains the same part it has been for weeks: a bullpen that can hand a five-run cushion right back to a last-place opponent in the span of one bad at-bat. Foley's ERA is now over 6.00, and nights like this are exactly why the front office has a decision to make before the deadline.
Still, a win is a win, and after the week this team just had, style points do not matter. Giants are 43-60, the skid is over, and the second game of this doubleheader is up next. One thing at a time. For one night, at least, Rafael Devers made sure the ending matched the beginning.
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