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Alex Cobb and trio of homers not enough in SF Giants 6-4 loss to Padres

The SF Giants bullpen almost pulled off an impressive feat in Mexico City before a Padres eighth-inning rally.

Marc Delucchi

Alex Cobb and trio of homers not enough in SF Giants 6-4 loss to Padres
Alex Cobb and trio of homers not enough in SF Giants 6-4 loss to Padres /
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The SF Giants wrapped up their two-game series in Mexico City, Mexico with a tough 6-4 loss to the San Diego Padres. After losing a 16-11 home run storm in the hitter-friendly conditions on Saturday, the Giants got an impressive performance from starting pitcher Alex Cobb, but the offense's inability to score late put to much pressure on their bullpen. The Giants are now 11-16 on the season, and fall to four games back of first place in the National League West.

Cobb started his outing with four shutout innings, something that seemed impossible in the environment at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú, which has fairly normal dimensions despite extremely high altitude that allows fly balls to carry and makes it harder for pitchers to generate the same break on their pitches.

Cobb changed up his pitch mix in the unique environment, leaning heavily on a slower curveball over his usual primary putaway pitch, a splitter. With the altitude lessening the break on most pitches, Cobb leaned on an offering with more movement and a larger velocity gap from his fastball. It worked quite well.

The Padres broke through against Cobb in his fifth, and final, inning of work. Catcher Austin Nola ended the shutout with a two-run homer to center field. Fernando Tatís Jr. doubled and came around to score later in the inning before Cobb recorded the 1,000th career strikeout of his career to end the inning. He allowed three earned runs on seven hits without allowing a walk and recording seven strikeouts.

Offensively, LaMonte Wade Jr. got the Giants scoring started quickly, leading off the game with a solo home run against Padres starting pitcher Yu Darvish. The first batter of the game, it seemed like Wade was setting the tone for another game with a Home Run Derby feel.

Giants third baseman J.D. Davis hit his team-leading sixth home run of the season in the top of the second, taking an offspeed pitch from Darvish to right-field for an opposite field homer.

In the top of the fourth, left fielder Mitch Haniger blasted a towering 460' homer of his own to give the Giants a 3-0 lead. But a trio of home runs is far less valuable with nobody on base. Darvish did an excellent job limiting opposing baserunners to keep things close. The Giants only managed to score one more run.

Scott Alexander and John Brebbia were excellent out of the bullpen for the Giants, shutting down the Padres in the sixth and seventh innings. Kapler turned to Tyler Rogers in the eighth, who found himself with runners on first and second with one out after allowing a hit and a walk.

Despite lefties set to be two of the next three hitters, Giants manager Gabe Kapler opted to bring in closer Camilo Doval. While both Doval and Rogers are righties, Rogers has maintained reverse splits throughout his big-league career, while Doval has been notably less effective against lefties.

Left-handed hitting Padres first baseman Jake Cronenworth tied the game up against Doval with an RBI single. Two batters later, Doval suffered from a bad luck double by Matt Carpenter, which was a perfectly placed pop-up in shallow center field that bounced off the glove of a diving Mike Yastrzemski. Two more runs scored, putting the Padres ahead for good.

Yastrzemski had already appeared to suffer a minor injury earlier in the game but had opted to remain in. After the dive, however, he was forced to leave the game and slowly limped off the field. The Giants can only hope that he avoided a severe injury.

The SF Giants will now head to Houston to begin a three-game series against the Astros and old friend Mauricio Dubón on Monday night. Giants righty Ross Stripling will face off against Luis Garcia. First pitch is scheduled for 5:10 PM Pacific.

Published
Marc Delucchi
MARC DELUCCHI

Marc Delucchi (he/they/she) serves as the Managing Editor at Giants Baseball Insider, leading their SF Giants coverage. As a freelance journalist, he has previously covered the San Francisco Giants at Around the Foghorn and McCovey Chronicles. He also currently contributes to Niners Nation, Golden State of Mind, and Baseball Prospectus. He has previously been featured in several other publications, including SFGate, ProFootballRumors, Niners Wire, GrandStand Central, Call to the Pen, and Just Baseball. Over his journalistic career, Marc has conducted investigations into how one prep baseball player lost a college opportunity during the pandemic (Baseball Prospectus) and the rampant mistreatment of players at the University of Hawaii football program under former head coach Todd Graham (SFGate). He has also broken dozens of news stories around professional baseball, primarily around the SF Giants organization, including the draft signing of Kyle Harrison, injuries and promotions to top prospects like Heliot Ramos, and trade details in the Kris Bryant deal. Marc received a Bachelor's degree from Kenyon College with a major in economics and a minor in Spanish. During his time in college, he conducted a summer research project attempting to predict the future minor-league performance of NCAA hitters, worked as a data analyst for the school's Women's basketball team, and worked as a play-by-play announcer/color commentator for the basketball, baseball, softball, and soccer teams. He also worked as an amateur baseball scout with the Collegiate Baseball Scouting Network (later renamed Evolution Metrix), scouting high school and college players for three draft cycles. For tips and inquiries, feel free to reach out to Marc directly on Twitter or via email (delucchimarc@gmail.com).

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