St. Petersburg, Fla – Thairo Estrada hit a pair of home runs and Logan Webb allowed one run in seven innings as the San Francisco Giants defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 11-2 on Saturday afternoon. LaMonte Wade Jr, Jorge Soler, and Matt Chapman also homered for San Francisco who hadn’t homered in their seven previous games.
Ryan Pepiot (1-2, 5.51 ERA) took the loss for the Rays whose record drops to 8-7. He worked five innings allowing four earned runs on five hits while striking out six and walking two. He allowed a pair of home runs and all four runs he surrendered came with two outs in the inning. He made 85 pitches with 57 for strikes.
The nine run loss was the largest margin of defeat for the Rays since falling to the Houston Astros 17-4 on July 29, 2023.
Logan Webb (1-1, 3.80 ERA) picks up the win for the Giants who improve to 6-9 on the season. He worked 7.0-innings allowing one earned run on six hits while striking out four, walking one, and hitting a batter. He threw 96 pitches with 61 for strikes.
Last season, Webb led all of Major League baseball with a 62.7% groundball rate. On Saturday, he induced 12 ground ball outs including two double-play balls accounting for 14 of the 21 outs he recorded.
Yandy Diaz grounded into a double play in the bottom of the third inning to tie the score at 1-1. It was Diaz’s MLB leading 10th ball hit over 100 mph resulting in an out.
Thairo Estrada homered with two out in the top of the fourth to put the Giants back on top 2-1. It was Estrada’s second homer of the season and ends a seven game drought in the power department for San Francisco. The last time the Giants went eight games without a homer was June 25 through July 2, 2023.
LaMonte Wade Jr. extended the Giants lead in the top of the fifth launching first homer of the season, a 2-run shot, that gave San Francisco a 4-1 lead. San Francisco scored each of their first four runs with 2-outs in the inning.
Chris Devenski came in to work the sixth inning and immediately walked the first three batters. Mike Yazstremski delivered a 2-RBI single and Patrick Bailey drove in a run on a ground rule double extending the Giants lead to 7-1. The three runs allowed by Devenski ended an 8.0-inning scoreless streak for the Rays’ bullpen which is still trying to gain consistency, especially when it comes to throwing strikes.
Devenski, like many of the Rays relievers this season is having difficulty finding the strike zone. “He’s griding a a little bit, he gets ahead 0-2 and ends up walking the leadoff guy, he’s working really hard to find his way right now.” Manager Kevin Cash said. “But he’s going to be a big part of our rotation, bullpen, pitching staff. Confident in that, it’s just been a little challenging of late. Get him some rest and that get the ball back in his hand.”
Devinski was charged with six earned runs in two innings of work. The six earned runs allowed matched a career high (also May 15, 2016 versus Boston Red Sox). The two home runs allowed also matched a career high (prev. July 22, 2018 at Los Angeles Angels).
Cash added that the bullpen as a whole is on shaky ground with their control. “It is uncharacteristic (the walks). I think we just keep pounding the message of count controls everything.” Cash said. “We’ve been so successful with controlling the count and getting ahead of hitters for so many seasons now. We’re going to get there. A lot of times you have one or two guys in the bullpen where its challenging, it feels like there are a lot of guys in the bullpen that are having a problem consistently finding the zone.”
Jorge Soler extended the lead to 8-1 belting his third homer of the season with 1-out in the top of the seventh. Later in the inning, Thairo Estada hit his second homer of the game to push the Giants lead to 10-1. It marked Estrada’s fourth career multi-homer game.
With Tampa Bay trailing 10-1, catcher Ben Rortverdt was summoned to the mound in the eighth inning. San Francisco loaded the bases but did not score in the eighth; however, he did allow a run on a Matt Chapman homer in the ninth.
Rene Pinto delivered a sacrifice fly to score Austin Shenton who had led off the bottom of the eighth with a pinch hit double. Niko Goodrum struck out in his first plate appearance with the Rays. Richie Palacios single in the eighth was his third hit of the game. It’s his second career three hit game and his first with the Rays.
Matt Chapman homered off Ben Rortverdt in the top of the ninth to extend the Giants lead to 11-2.
Jose Caballero‘s career high seven game hitting streak was snapped after finishing the game hitless in four at-bats.
Up Next For Rays:
The Rays and Giants will wrap up their three game series Sunday afternoon at 1:40 p.m. The Rays will look for their first home series win of the year and first since September 19 though 21, 2023 against the Los Angeles Angels. Former Ray Blake Snell (0-1, 9.00 ERA) will make his second start for San Francisco. The Rays will counter with Shawn Armstrong as the opener with Tyler Alexander (0-0, 8.68 ERA) expected to work bulk innings.