Rangers 5, Giants 4: Vitello Sat Bryce Eldridge, Eldridge Tied the Game Off the Bench Anyway, and the Ninth Inning Lost It Anyway

The best young hitter this organization has produced in a decade watched from the bench for eight innings. Then he came up with two on in the ninth, swollen thumb and all, and tied the game with one swing. And this team STILL found a way to hand it back before anybody's heart rate came down. I am so tired.

Explain the lineup card to me. Slowly.

Bryce Eldridge was not in Tuesday's starting lineup. Tony Vitello sat him — nursing the swollen thumb, managing the kid, whatever the phrasing of the day is — and ran Rafael Devers out at first base in Arlington instead. Fine. I have heard every version of the load-management sermon this season and I have hated all of them, but fine. Except here is the thing: the game got to the ninth inning with the Giants down 4-2, two men on, season circling the drain at eleven o'clock at night, and who did Vitello have to reach for? Eldridge. The guy who apparently could not start a baseball game but could absolutely be asked to save one cold off the bench against a big-league reliever.

And he did it. Of course he did it. First pitch situation of the night for him, lefty Jacob Latz on the mound, and Eldridge — with the swollen thumb that supposedly kept him out of the lineup — laced a single to right-center that scored Grant McCray and Drew Gilbert and tied the game 4-4. Two RBIs on one swing off the bench. The kid keeps screaming the answer at the organization and the organization keeps treating him like a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option. If the thumb is healthy enough for THAT at-bat, it was healthy enough for four of them.

It wasn't enough, because with this team it is never enough

You know what happened next, because you have watched this season. Bottom of the ninth. Dylan Smith on the mound. Ezequiel Duran — who had already doubled home Corey Seager and Wyatt Langford in the eighth to put Texas up 4-2 — lifted a ball to right field that should have been the end of the inning. Jung Hoo Lee misread it. It dropped on the warning track. Jake Burger came around, 5-4 Rangers, ballgame, handshake line, another entry in the thickest folder in my desk: Good Giants Innings Immediately Followed By Catastrophe.

Duran doubled twice in two innings and drove in or scored the difference basically by himself. The tying rally lasted about four minutes as a lead. Four minutes. We tied the game in the top of the ninth and lost it in the bottom of the ninth and honestly the worst part is that not one person reading this is surprised.

The rest of the night deserved better company

Blade Tidwell gave the Giants five real innings — two runs, 100 pitches, both runs in a shaky first before he settled. Osleivis Basabe, who is rapidly becoming the only appointment viewing on this roster, hit ANOTHER two-run homer in the seventh, this one off a 97-mph Chase Silseth sinker, his third home run in four games, to tie it 2-2. A night after Jung Hoo Lee homered twice in the 5-1 win, the offense clawed back twice from behind on the road. There were real, actual good things in this game. There usually are. That is what makes the endings unbearable.

And I want to be fair to Lee, who won us Monday's game with his bat. Outfielders misread balls in that ballpark, the roof, the lights, whatever. But the eighth and ninth innings of Giants games have stopped being baseball and started being a horror franchise. Different monster every night, same ending.

Play the kid. Every day. Stop making me write this.

I wrote a whole column weeks ago about Vitello's lineup chaos and Eldridge's usage, and I genuinely resent that the season keeps handing me sequels. This team is 48-66. There is nothing left to protect, no pennant race to manage around, no veteran timeshare worth preserving. The only thing that matters between now and October is that Bryce Eldridge, Grant McCray, Drew Gilbert and Osleivis Basabe get every at-bat that exists. Tuesday night, the kid Vitello sat was the only reason the ninth inning meant anything at all. It wasn't enough, and they lost anyway, and that is this season in one sentence.

Eldridge did his job with one at-bat to work with. Imagine what he does with four. Go Giants. Somehow, still — go Giants.

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