Giants feebly get shut out by Padres

On the surface, there were some similarities between the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres ahead of their doubleheader opener on Sunday.

Both offenses are good; surprisingly good, perhaps.

Both starting pitchers are having difficult seasons but there’s plenty of reason to think they’re quite good, given their respective pasts.

But even if you look at those similarities, they point in the Padres favor as you start to dig deeper.

Sure, the Giants offense has been good; but not as good as the Padres. And sure Johnny Cueto is a formerly great pitcher; but Mike Clevinger was great as recently as last season.

And that about summed up the game.

Cueto was outmatched by the Padres dynamic offense, which was filled to the brim with high-quality hitters. He got into trouble repeatedly, and while he got out of a few jams, he got buried by a few others. He made it through 5.2 innings, but gave up 7 hits, 3 walks, 6 runs, and 4 earned runs. His shimmies and off-speed pitches did little to confuse the Padres, and he struck out just two out of 26 batters.

And Clevinger looked like his 2019 self against the Giants batters, throwing a (seven inning) complete game shutout, while allowing just three baserunners: a walk drawn by Mike Yastrzemski, a single by Alex Dickerson, and a double by Brandon Crawford.

And that was it. The game felt over when Greg Garcia hit a two-run, two-out single in the second inning, and it might as well have been.

The Giants lost 6-0 and, for better or for worse, turn right around to try and gain their revenge.

They’ve now been outscored 15-0 in doubleheaders in 2020.