San Francisco Giants 3 Up, 3 Down: Winning Another Series

3 DOWN

1 – End the Inning

There were plenty of instances in this series where Giants’ pitchers just couldn’t get out of the inning, mostly in Wednesday’s debacle. There was an inning on Tuesday where starter Ty Blach ran into two-out trouble as well, though. After two quick outs in the fourth, Blach issued a walk and gave up a single, and that came back to bite him. Michael A. Taylor lifted a three-run, game-tying home run the other way, hitting the green aluminum on top of the right field wall.

It was much worse on Wednesday, however. The Nationals scored 15 runs and 14 of them crossed the plate with two outs in the inning. They scored three in the first and the fourth, two in the fifth, sixth, and seventh, all with two outs on their record. One run scored in the eighth with one out, but the last two came across after another out.

2 – Oh No-sich

This was a big month for Josh Osich. With Will Smith on the shelf for the first month of the season, Osich earned a spot on the Opening Day roster with a lights-out performance in Spring Training. Acting as the second lefty with Watson also in the bullpen, Osich could have used this month to re-establish himself as a reliable big league pitcher.

Instead, he did more of the same thing that he’s done over the past two seasons. In his appearance on Wednesday, which was nothing more than mop-up duty, Osich was charged with four runs on four hits and a walk in 1.2 innings, raising his ERA this year to 8.10, and his WHIP to 2.200.

As mentioned before, Smith is closing in on his return, and only has one more big box to tick off on his rehab stint. He’ll pitch in back-to-back games on Wednesday and Thursday before making one final rehab appearance, and then he’ll be back. Smith’s path to the roster seems like it will obviously come at Osich’s expense. The question becomes, could Osich be removed from the 40-man roster at some point this year as well?

Next: 3 Up, 3 Down: First Series Win

3 – Ugly Loss, Old Memories

Though the Giants took two of three from Washington, the Wednesday loss did bring back some bad memories of the 2017 season. The Giants allowed 12 or more runs five times in the first 31 games of 2017, including four times in a seven-game span from April 29th to May 6th. The 2018 Giants are still in better position than their 2017 counterparts, but another set of games like Wednesday’s could spell doom for them.