Justin Verlander and Sam Huff are perhaps as far as you can be away from each other in terms of career trajectory. 60 feet 6 inches apart on the diamond, pushed even further away by accolades and recognition. A Cy Young, MVP, World Series, future Hall of Fame starter and a scuffling, late-20s quadruple-A back-up catcher — but in the eyes of San Francisco fans, they’re both babes in the orange-and-black, both still searching for their first “moment” as a San Francisco Giant.
The recap for Sunday’s game was supposed to be about this: Verlander pitching through 6 complete, allowing one run on just two hits, earning his first win of 2025. And Huff’s tie-breaking 2-run homer in the 6th — his first homer, his first clip on a Giant highlight reel .
But unfortunately things happened. This recap is about perspective — which no one wants. It’s about how a baseball game can sometimes be a nonsensical thing. How a game that seemed so over, with its narratives and through-lines all neatly tied up and concluded, could unravel so unexpectedly. The 9th inning not as a denouement or even climax, but an entirely new story in a new genre with new main characters, a new arc and themes.
In the grand scheme of things, Ryan Walker’s 4-run meltdown in the 9th was not unique. Yes, a save opportunity there has a high probability of being converted, but upsets in baseball happen everyday.
Don’t let that reality shouldn’t belittle your emotions. I’m here to affirm. You feel blindsided, slapped, punched in the gut, betrayed. Upsets are upsetting. They jelly the legs and make you question the very ground you stand on. Why do bad things happen to good people? I wandered through an emotional desert after this collapse, flitted through the stages of grief — and I was just sitting on a couch in front of the television. Imagine how Ryan Walker felt standing on the first baseline as the Giants went through the obligatory challenge of the safe call at home. Head down as Zach Neto’s headfirst slide beating the relay home played and replayed on the Jumbotron at Angels Stadium.
Baseball is a pain machine, churning out a daily dose of shame, frustration, of how? A bitter pill that was Walker’s turn to swallow. He was due. He had a pretty charmed life on the field for awhile now.
Since becoming the Giants closer, he had yet to blow a save opportunity. He had surrendered four runs in an appearance only once before, back in September 2023. He had only given up multiple runs in his new role once when Anthony Santander broke a 3-3 tie with a walk-off homer in Baltimore last September. Taking the mound in the 9th with a 4-1 lead Sunday afternoon, Walker’s ERA was 1.13. Opposing bats had just scored one run against him in 8 appearances so far, and he was currently on a 7-game stretch of scoreless appearances.
After Verlander completed the 6th with a lead, the relief corps fell into line and maintained it as they’ve done all season. Camilo Doval walked the lead-off man in the 7th but righted himself with a K and a double-play. Tyler Rogers continued to bamboozle, ending his frame fielding a weakly hit come-backer that he shot-putted to first. He walked off the mound shaking his head, smiling — always the Fool. Everything happened as anticipated for the Giants. Logic ruled. A familiar and formulaic story being written. All Walker had to do was punctuate the sentence.
What I love about baseball is that each game is made up of hundreds of tiny rotaries of possibility. Results as exits taken and choices made create the next set of possibilities. These moments are often so numerous that it’s difficult to retrace a game’s progression to the moment “everything changed”, and often there is no such single moment. There’s a mathematical way to calculate all this, of course. Expected batting averages fluctuate with the difference in count. Win probability rises and falls as frequently as a heart monitor. In a game like Sunday’s though, it’s easy to find the rotary, where the game took the wrong turn for San Francisco.
While Jorge Soler’s single produced a more significant dip on the win probability chart, as did Logan O’Hoppe’s one-out single, and of course, Zach Neto getting hit by a pitch with the bases loaded delivered another sizable blow to the Giants’ chances — the moment that the inning and the game hinged on was the 3-2 slider to Mike Trout.
With a 3-run lead, a single runner on base shouldn’t concern a closer. That run “doesn’t matter” in the sense that it won’t change the outcome of the game if he scores. Trout could walk around the bases for all Walker cared, his attention needed to be completely on the hitter.
But also in a very true sense, Trout’s walk did matter because it very easily could’ve been the first out of the inning. Instead of ball four, and having the Angels’ potential second run on base (though it “doesn’t matter”, scoring the second run is an incredibly important step in scoring the third, fourth and fifth), home plate umpire Laz Diaz saw a high slider as up, despite it clearly splitting the top cross bar of the zone.
Maybe not a major change in probability, but a seismic one in terms of feeling. A call that didn’t go Walker’s way which forshadowed an inning that really didn’t go his way.
If it helps assuage your sour sentiments, blame the outcome on home plate umpire Laz Diaz. That’s why umpires exits, right? But does Walker avoid the storm if he gets that call? Maybe? Note how that last maybe is the wishiest-washiest maybe possible. It was pretty clear before that pitch that he wasn’t operating with the same command. Walker had Trout down in a 1-2 count (all sinkers) before he hooked his first slider of the zone well outside of the opposite batter’s box. A wasted pitch that probably helped Trout spit on the next slider — which would’ve been a dynamite offering if it was the fourth in the sequence rather than the fifth.
The point is Walker hadn’t been convincing before that borderline pitch. He hadn’t thrown his breaking ball over the plate yet, he hadn’t taken a hold of Diaz’s hand, which you have to do with an umpire, and showed him that he was in complete control, that this spinning, curvy white orb was going exactly where he wanted it to go. Then there’s the Mike Trout factor. In the war of the ump’s allegiance, he’s going to have the advantage just based on reputation. Elevated pitches look higher because he’s so good at digging out low pitches. The late break of the slider too meant the pitch was out of the zone for most of its flight. When he gave up on it, so did the ump. After that slider crossed the plate, Trout lowered his bat, looked back and whispered to Diaz that the pitch was up, and Diaz nodded, saying Of course, Mikey. Anything you say, Mikey.
Walker didn’t get the call, nor did he really deserve it. From then the inning was in freefall.
Jorge Soler singled on an uncompetitive fastball, bringing the tying run to the plate with no outs. Things brightened slightly after Walker painted a perfect sinker on the inside corner to Nolan Schanuel for the first out, but he couldn’t maintain that quality of command. He missed wildly on the first two pitches to Logan O’Hoppe, and on the third pitch — a very inside sinker — the righty found a hole in the infield to load the bases. Even at this point, a slight flickering flame of hope remained. We had seen Walker buckle down in situations like this before. Runners on, back against the wall. He has the stuff to put any hitter in the league on their heels. The Angels still hadn’t scored. The bases were loaded, but the tying run wasn’t in scoring position yet. Surely there was a way out of this — a belief that strengthened when Walker put himself ahead of Zach Neto with a 1-2 count. Another opportunity with count leverage. Walker had options, pitches to play with. He stuck with his sinker, stuck with the inside location. The fastball, like a heat-seeking missile, latched onto its target and buried itself into Neto’s stomach.
A complete overthrow. Walker wanted to blow it by the guy so badly he ended up nearly throwing it through him. The wind knocked out of Neto, and the wind too, gone from Walker’s sails. Again with count advantage to Jo Adell, Walker couldn’t convert, and the centerfielder hooked a hanging slider down the line, in the perfect location for the winning run to score from first. Again, the choice to go to the breaking ball? He hadn’t thrown one since the Schanuel AB, and he missed with it there too. The one to Adell was in the zone — but that was the problem. Too much over the plate, too elevated, and Adell said too bad.
The Giants were all geared up to go home with their heads held high. A 6-4 road trip without dropping a series. Hot dog!
What a difference a game makes. Instead of a triumphant return, the 45 minute flight from John Wayne to SFO must’ve felt like being stuck in a hearse stuck in an LA traffic jam.
But as my wife reminded me countless times as I tried to reason through what I had just witnessed, these kinds of losses are inevitable. “That’s baseball,” she said, emphasizing her New York accent, echoing, in a loving and lovingly mocking way, the rote condolences she had heard her father and brother and me mutter to ourselves all these years.
The great grace of baseball is that after something like Sunday’s shock, there’s another game the next day. No week long festering in this misery as we’d do with football or soccer — Monday brings a new chance, an immediate opportunity to react.
Finally back at home, we’ll see how this team responds.
