SAN FRANCISCO — Heliot Ramos had no reason to drift away from second base.
In the bottom of the first, with Willy Adames on first and Ramos on second, Matt Chapman skied a popup that went about 40 feet. Chapman was automatically out as the infield fly rule was called, and Pirates third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes let the ball fall to the grass instead of making the easy catch.
Ramos, still a live runner, should’ve remained planted on second base. Instead, when the ball touched grass, Ramos ended up about 25 feet from second base. Hayes, who likely wasn’t expecting Ramos to be so far off the bag, picked up the ball, hesitated for a beat, then fired to second base. Nick Gonzales applied the tag to Ramos, and the Pirates turned rare infield fly rule double play. The inning was over, and so was the rally.
The sequence wasn’t just emblematic of Ramos’ blunders specifically, but the team’s subpar play generally.
Ramos’ gaffe was the defining lowlight on a night where the Giants lost 3-1 to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday night at Oracle Park. They haven’t just lost five straight. They haven’t just dropped dropped 11 of their last 13 games. They don’t just have the worst record in baseball since acquiring Rafael Devers.
For the first time since March 29, the second game of the season, the Giants have a .500 record: 54 wins, 54 losses. And after losing their first two games to the Pirates, they’re looking at the possibility of losing all six games of this home stand and entering the trade deadline with a sub-.500 record.
Adames gave the Giants a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fourth with a solo homer, his 16th home run of the year, but the Pirates’ Liover Peguero tied the game up at one apiece in the top of the fifth with a solo homer of his own.
The Giants had another very odd sequence in the top of the eighth, one that led to the Pirates scoring two runs and taking a 3-1 lead.
With runners on first and second, Hayes grounded a ball to second baseman Casey Schmitt. Reliever Tyler Rogers raced to the bag and looked towards second base, appearing to think that Schmitt threw the ball to second for the force out. Schmitt, instead, threw to first. Rogers wasn’t looking for Schmitt’s throw and the ball whizzed past him, deflecting off Hayes. It went down as a single that loaded the bases.
Pittsburgh didn’t waste the opportunity and took a 3-1 lead. Former Giant Joey Bart gave the Pirates the lead with an RBI single to left field, then Peguero drove in his second run of the night on a groundout.