Giants vs Rockies, July 10: Robbie Ray Has to Bury Colorado, and Bryce Eldridge Is the Reason to Watch

This is a game the Giants simply have to win. The worst team in baseball is in town, Robbie Ray is on the mound, and a 6-foot-7 rookie is doing things at the plate that most hitters that size are not supposed to be able to do.

There are games you circle because they are hard, and there are games you circle because they cannot be anything but easy on paper, which somehow makes them more nerve-wracking. Friday night at Oracle Park is the second kind. The Colorado Rockies, the worst team in the sport, are in San Francisco, and the Giants are handing the ball to Robbie Ray. If this team has any designs on climbing back into relevance, this is exactly the sort of night that has to end in a win, and not a sweaty, one-run, bullpen-melting win either. A comfortable one.

Let me say the quiet part out loud. The Giants have not been good enough this year, and everyone in the building knows it. That is precisely why a matchup like this one matters more than the opponent's record suggests. You do not get to pick and choose which games count when you are chasing. You beat the teams you are supposed to beat, you beat them convincingly, and you stack those wins until the math starts to look friendly again. Tonight is a supposed-to-beat game. There is no moral victory available here, only the plain obligation to take care of business.

Robbie Ray is the right man for a must-win

If you are going to script a night where the Giants have no excuse to lose, you want your veteran left-hander walking to the mound to start it. Ray comes in at 8-6 with a 3.45 ERA, and more importantly he comes in as the kind of arm who can put a bad lineup away early. His last time out he gave the Giants six innings and kept them in it, and that is the assignment again here: set the tone, work deep, do not let a Rockies club that has nothing to lose hang around and start believing.

Because that is the trap with a team like Colorado. They are 0-for-the-season in the standings, they are running a starter in Tanner Gordon who is carrying a 6.95 ERA, and everything about the matchup screams laugher. But bad teams beat good teams every week in this sport when the favorite pitches down to the competition. Ray's job tonight is not just to win, it is to slam the door before the drama ever gets a chance to write itself. Punch out the middle of that order, get to the sixth or seventh with a lead, and hand it off. Do that, and the Giants win going away.

And then there is Bryce Eldridge

Here is the part that makes this team, even in a frustrating season, genuinely appointment viewing right now. Bryce Eldridge is 21 years old. He is 6-foot-7. And he is hitting like a man who has already figured out a puzzle it takes most players a decade to solve, if they ever solve it at all.

The home run that told me everything was the one he yanked into McCovey Cove. It came on a pitch on the inner half, the exact location that is supposed to be the great equalizer against tall hitters. The book on a 6-foot-7 slugger is simple and old as the game itself: bust him inside, tie up those long arms, let the levers work against him. Nobody with that kind of wingspan is supposed to be able to get the barrel around on a ball in on the hands and still keep it fair, let alone drive it 106 miles per hour off the bat and drop it in the water. Eldridge did exactly that. He turned the one pitch he is supposed to be vulnerable to into a splash hit, the first splash hit of his career.

If you do not follow the sport closely, let me explain why that is such a big deal. A hitter that size has a longer path to the ball. That length is a gift on pitches out over the plate, where the leverage produces the kind of 458-foot moonshots Eldridge has also been hitting this month. But that same length is supposed to be a liability inside, where quickness beats power and the barrel arrives late. When a giant of a man shows he can pull his hands in, stay short to an inside fastball or a hung slider, and still uncork that much force, you are not watching a good young hitter. You are watching a rare one. The physical profile and the bat control are not supposed to live in the same body. In Eldridge, they do.

The numbers behind the eye test

This is not one loud swing carrying a highlight reel either. Over the last two weeks Eldridge has been on a tear that would look like a misprint if you did not see the games. He has slashed .426 with a .509 on-base percentage and a .766 slugging over that stretch, with three home runs, and he has been reaching base four times in a night. That is not a hot week from a prospect getting his feet wet. That is a middle-of-the-order force announcing that the Giants' future arrived earlier than anyone penciled in.

For a franchise that has spent this season searching for something to build around and something to feel good about, Eldridge is both. He is the reason a random Friday against the last-place Rockies is worth your night. Even if the Giants were completely out of it, and they are not quite there, you would tune in just to see whether the big kid does something you have never seen a hitter his size do. Lately, he has been doing exactly that on a nightly basis.

The bottom line

So here is the night in one breath. Robbie Ray needs to do the professional thing and put a bad team in the ground early. The lineup needs to pile on and make it the comfortable win the matchup demands. And somewhere in the middle of it, Bryce Eldridge is going to step in at 6-foot-7 and 21 years old, and there is a real chance he does something that reminds everyone why the long term in San Francisco looks a lot brighter than the standings do right now. Take care of the Rockies. Win the game you are supposed to win. And keep your eyes on the tall kid, because he is turning into the best reason to watch this team.

• Rockies at Giants, Oracle Park, Friday, July 10
• Robbie Ray (8-6, 3.45 ERA) starts for San Francisco
• Tanner Gordon (0-2, 6.95 ERA) starts for Colorado, the worst team in baseball
• Bryce Eldridge, 21 and 6-foot-7, has splashed an inside pitch into the Cove and is hitting .426 over two weeks

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