Giants strike out 17 times, win anyway

The San Francisco Giants struck out 17 times on Tuesday against the Cincinnati Reds. That’s not a typo: the San Francisco Giants struck out 17 times.

Still won though.

So allow me to reheat and repeat the intro to yesterday’s recap.

I would not call the San Francisco Giants season boring, but it has become a touch formulaic. You know the drill by now: the starting pitcher will be somewhere between good and dominant, either mowing down hitters or pulling a Houdini act to escape stressful innings. The offense will put runs on the board — not as many as you grew accustomed to in 2020, but certainly enough. And then the keys are handed to the bullpen, and that’s where the excitement comes in.

Think of each Giants game like a Sue Grafton novel. You know what’s going to happen for the first two-thirds. Read the first two-thirds of one book and you can start with the final third for any of the others. Watch the first six innings of any Giants game, and you can start with the seventh inning for any.

Of the Giants 16 losses, they’ve entered the seventh inning with a lead or a tie half of the time.

If you watch baseball for the calming catharsis of the event, tune into innings 1 through 6. If you watch it for the thrill of the unknown, do something else for the first hour and 45 minutes, and check back in when the seventh is getting started.

Yep, that’s about it. Still works.

Anthony DeSclafani allowed a home run on just the third pitch he threw, and then settled down entirely, making it through 7 innings without allowing any more damage, and striking out 7.

It would seem to be that he’s pretty darn good.

The offense might not be pretty darn good, but it was once again good enough. Alex Dickerson certainly was good enough, as he went 3-4 with a double and the most important hit of the game, a three-run dinger.

Brandon Crawford is certainly good enough, as he had a home run and made stellar defensive play.

And the bullpen again made things interesting. This time it was Zack Littell who gave up a Nick Castellanos dinger (insert joke here), and plenty of hard contact.

But that was all the eighth inning damage, and Jake McGee set down the side on nine pitches in the ninth.

It’s a formula, all right. And it’s frustrating when it doesn’t work. But so far it’s worked 10 more times than it hasn’t.