The Giants continue to tread water in the National League West, falling 1-0 on the road Saturday to the Chicago White Sox with the bats for the most part staying silent in the 11 games since the trade for designated hitter Rafael Devers.
An excellent outing by starting pitcher Robbie Ray went for naught with the Giants getting handcuffed by Chicago starter Adrian Houser and reliever Grant Taylor.
The Giants, hopeful of rectifying a 3-6 homestand with a potentially favorable road trip to Chicago, Arizona and Sacramento, fell to 45-38 after winning the series opener Friday night. Chicago, which has nine rookies on the roster and could have its third straight season of 100 or more losses, is 26-57.
Andrew Benintendi drove in the lone run for Chicago with a wall-scraping solo home run in the sixth inning against Ray, his 10th of the season.
“Made a mistake, the guy hits a home run,” Ray told reporters afterward. “Solo home runs usually don’t beat you. Today it did.”
Ray (8-3) got the last out of the inning and was done for the day, giving up one run on four hits with two walks and six strikeouts. Ray threw 101 pitches, 64 of them strikes.
“It was a typical Robbie game,” Giants manager Bob Melvin told reporters. “He gave up a home run to a left-handed hitter, but that shouldn’t beat you when you pitch like that.”
Houser (3-2), who threw seven innings for the first time since 2023 when he was with the Milwaukee Brewers, gave up four hits with a walk and five strikeouts. He was replaced by Taylor in the eighth inning, who worked the last two innings for his second save. Taylor retired all six batters he faced. Hew threw just 88 pitches, 62 for strikes.
Devers finished 0-for-4 and struck out twice. He is hitting .227 (10-for-44) in 10 games with two home runs and five RBIs since joining the Giants.
The Giants did next to nothing until the sixth inning when No. 9 hitter Brett Wisely singled, with leadoff batter Christian Koss also hitting a single.
Houser worked the count to 0-2 on Devers, then balked the runners to second and third. Then disaster struck. Houser struck out Devers, with catcher Edwin Quero picking off Wisely off third base on strike three. It’s the latest in a rash of Giants’ baserunning errors which contributed to their 3-6 homestand.
Houser retired Ramos on a fly to center for the third out, capping an inning where the Giants had runners at second and third with their best hitters coming to the plate and ending up with nothing to show for it. They got only two runners in scoring position over the course of the game and didn’t get a hit.
“I mean, we’re trying to be aggressive and do some things to score from runs,” Melvin said. “In this case, it backfired.”
Ray looked at it as the key play of the game.
“That’s a tough situation, getting the strikeout and thrown out at third base on a back pick like that,” Ray said. “Got a great hitter in Ramos coming up and if he hits a fly out to center, it’s a sac fly. It did feel like a momentum shift for sure.”
The White Sox failed to add another run in the seventh against Erik Miller when Michael A. Taylor narrowly missed a home run that bounced off the top of the fence, and then was called out at the plate on a single by Josh Rojas when he failed to touch home plate. Catcher Andrew Knizner alertly applied the tag after a strong throw from Mike Yastrzemski.
NOTES
— Former Giants outfielder Austin Slater robbed Jung Hoo Lee of extra bases with a leaping catch in right field for the third out of the second inning. Lee came in hitting just .125 (7-for-56) with two RBIs in his previous 16 games.
Lee countered with a sliding catch of his own in center field to take extra bases from Josh Rojas with a runner on third.
— Justin Verlander (0-5) is still in search of his first win as a Giant and 263rd of his career as the Giants close out the series Sunday in Chicago.
— The Giants fell to 19-16 in games decided by one run.