San Francisco Giants pitcher Keaton Winn walks off the field after being pulled during the first inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Saturday, May 4, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
PHILADELPHIA — It’s debatable what was more relentless Saturday evening at Citizens Bank Park: the rain, or the Phillies’ offense.
Neither let up for most of the night, and the ominous weather that delayed first pitch by 70 minutes proved to have some prescient qualities to it.
Adding injury to insult, the Giants lost their second catcher in as many days, their starting pitcher failed to make it out of the first inning, and nobody was smiling about enduring a 14-3 loss in a constant downpour. It ended with a position player, Tyler Fitzgerald, playing out the string on the pitcher’s mound.
“It definitely didn’t make it any easier,” Giants starter Keaton Winn said of the conditions after recording only two outs while being tagged for five runs on four hits, two walks and a hit batsman, adding nearly a point and a half to his ERA, to 4.41 from 3.18.
You could say Winn had the worst night of anyone, struggling to grip the baseball, find the strike zone or fool Phillies hitters. Making matters worse, the right-hander was battling a persistent head cold. But then again, he was granted shelter in the third-base dugout after recording only two outs while his defense slogged through a five-run first inning and a four-run second against Mitch White.
“Look, both teams had to play in it,” manager Bob Melvin said of the rain that never let up. “It’s not ideal for anybody. But as long as both teams are playing in it, you’ve got to figure out the best way to do it. … They kept saying that it was minutes away from lightening up.”
Winn acknowledged that he couldn’t grip his signature splitter because of the wet ball, but the suboptimal playing conditions took their biggest toll on his catcher, Tom Murphy. The backup catcher was forced from the game in the second inning when he injured his knee blocking a pitch in the dirt, leaving Blake Sabol as the only healthy backstop on the active roster after Patrick Bailey left Friday night’s loss with a concussion.
Murphy said that he felt his knee “pop” and that the constant downpour that delayed the start of the game by 70 minutes and never let up played a “big time” role in the injury. The catcher was set to undergo imaging on Sunday, but for now, Melvin said, “It feels like it’s significant.”
By the time the Giants came to bat for a third time, everyone was drenched and they were in a nine-run hole.
It was evident from the get-go that the wet conditions were bothersome to Winn, who issued walks to the first two batters he faced and hit the Phillies’ cleanup man, Alec Bohm. Winn was unable to command either of his two best pitches, the splitter and sinker, and mostly relented to four-seam fastballs before Bob Melvin came out to get him.
“It was mainly on the splits,” Winn said. “Just overcorrecting because it’s a pitch that slips. That’s what I was doing tonight.”
The Phillies batted around in the first inning, forcing Winn to exhaust 39 pitches before departed with an out remaining.
“I would have liked to have had him finish the first inning,” Melvin said, “but at 39 pitches, if he gets into a pitch count battle with the next guy, that’s just too many pitches.”
Winn’s two-thirds of an inning amounted to the shortest start by a Giants pitcher this season, besides their two games using openers, and it couldn’t have come at a worse time. The Giants are in the middle of their longest stretch of the season without a day off — 16 straight games — and were…
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