Jarlin García is not, it turns out, invincible

This article is an indictment of me. Let me just start with that disclaimer.

I’ll explain why in a second, but first let me give you the heart of the article.

Jarlin García entered the game having appeared in 17 games and pitched 17 innings. In those 17 innings he’d allowed no earned runs. He’d faced 63 batters and he’d allowed just six hits. As you could probably surmise from the lack of earned runs, none of those six hits were home runs.

The San Francisco Giants turned to García in the sixth inning of their Wednesday game against the Philadelphia Phillies. García who had, again, allowed six hits to 63 batters, and zero runs in 17 innings.

They led 5-2, having scored five runs (all in the top half of the inning) courtesy of this:

And then this:

And then, quite crucially, this:

And having held Philadelphia in check in part because of this:

All while Carlos Rodón was doing this:

Which brings us to García and the sixth inning. García who, again, had allowed six hits to 63 batters and no runs in 17 innings.

He faced five batters. He gave up hits to four of them. Two of those four were home runs.

And just like that, the Phillies had four runs, García had an ERA, and the Giants were trailing 6-5, which would be the same pair of numbers that the scoreboard showed when the final out of the ninth inning was recorded.

So now I return to the first sentence of this recap: this article is an indictment of me. It’s an indictment because I’m trying to give García his flowers, and I waited until his first bad game of the year — his first bad game since September 22 — to do so.

That’s no way to treat a person!

García has been excellent this year. This is meant to be an article on how excellent he’s been, while offering a reminder that excellent players have bad days. Joc Pederson and Curt Casali, for instance, have both been excellent in the batter’s box this year, and they each hit 0-4 on Wednesday. No one bats an eye, because that happens.

It happened to García. He had a bad day at the office for the first time in 252 days, and while it cost the Giants the game, it also serves as a strong reminder that these things happen. Good players have bad games. Good teams lose games.

And then we wake up and try again tomorrow.