The San Francisco Giants followed up an energizing win with yet another lifeless loss. The Giants' offensive funk has been persistent and profound. Even when the SF Giants show signs of coming out of it, they have another game like yesterday in which they scored only one run—again. Some of the pitching hasn't been much better. Home run-allowing machine Ross Stripling continued to serve up taters like it was his job. Several of Farhan Zaidi's moves haven't panned out in recent years, starting with the decision to let Kevin Gausman leave. Instead, they brought back Alex Wood, Anthony DeSclafani, Stripling, Sean Manaea, and Carlos Rodón. Rodón was great but left after a year and Manaea is showing signs of life, but otherwise it's looking like a rough collection of signings, particularly when Gausman wanted to return but SF didn't make him an offer.
There was some controversy about Gabe Kapler seemingly making opposite moves with Wade Meckler in the span of three days. In the first game of the series, Kap let Meckler hit agianst a lefty with the bases loaded when Heliot Ramos was an option to pinch hit. In the series finale, he pinch hit Slater for Meckler with the bases loaded down by five runs. While this stirred some emotions, Slater is clearly a superior option against a lefty compared to Ramos (or, probably, Meckler) and so the decision was justifyable. The one argument that holds weight is that Joc Pederson was on deck and there was only one out. So Meckler could hit for himself (and hope to stay out of a double play) and Slater could hit for Joc. Slater's recent struggles don't matter much compared to his recent and prolonged stretch of excellence as a pinch hitter and vs. LHP in general.
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