SAN FRANCISCO – A pair of bad sliders from Taylor Rogers sank the Giants in extra innings Saturday night.
Rogers replaced closer Camilo Doval in a no-hitter in the 10th inning, then allowed back-to-back homers on back-to-back hanging sliders to Bryan Reynolds and Ke’Bryan Hayes as the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Giants, 4-3 . , in front of 34,841 people at Oracle Park.
Jorge Soler hit a two-run shot in the bottom of the 10th to give the Giants some hope, but they couldn’t get the game tied against Pirates closer David Bednar.
It was a disappointing loss for the Giants, who fell to 13-15 and wasted a magical performance from Jordan Hicks.
The first inning foreshadowed a fascinating evening as Hicks retired each of the Pirates’ first three batters on the same pitch, a separator that evaporated into the air and reappeared in the catcher’s glove.
The splitter was his pitch all night. He threw low splitters under the zone to cause bad swings. He threw them in the zone to change the batters’ eye level. Sometimes he threw them right in the middle.
In the fourth inning, the Pirates finally scored one. Hicks had knocked out Bryan Renolds on an 85 mph splitter, then fanned Ke’Bryan Hayes on a 96 mph sinker. With two strikes to Connor Joe, Hicks left a splitter up the middle and Joe muscled him to left field for a double.
Not surprisingly, he retired the next batter, Jack Suwinski, on a divider under the zone.
In the fifth, Hicks struck out two more batters, you guessed it, two more splitters.
And when first baseman Wilmer Flores committed two errors in the sixth inning, Hicks essentially recorded five outs to get out of the inning unscathed.
In the seventh, he allowed a single before the Giants replaced him with reliever Luke Jackson. Hicks finished six innings with just one run while striking out a career-high nine batters and lowering his ERA to 1.59. He left the mound to a standing ovation.
Flores made up for his two errors with an RBI double to put the Giants on the board in the sixth inning, but when Jackson replaced Hicks in the seventh, he coughed up a run and with it, Hicks’ chance to win.
The score remained tied, 1-1, until the 10th inning, when Rogers allowed back-to-back homers.
Soler’s two-run shot in the bottom of the inning was his fifth home run of the year.
Thairo Estrada hit a one-out single to put the tying run on base, but LaMonte Wade Jr. and Mike Yastrzemski struck out to end the game.
Afterwards : RHP Keaton Winn (2-3, 3.54 ERA) faces RHP Jared Jones (2-2, 2.79 ERA) on Sunday at 1:05 p.m.
California Daily Newspapers