SAN FRANCISCO -- The day off didn't add any extra life to the Giants' bats.
In what has become a familiar story over the last month, the Giants struggled to string rallies together and get big hits when they did get runners on. This time, they wasted a strong effort from Logan Webb, who took a tough decision in a 3-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox.
Webb gave up three runs, with the first two coming from red-hot Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas, who is batting nearly .500 in the second half. Casas ripped an RBI double into the gap in the second inning, and three innings later he hit a 435-foot homer to left-center, the kind of blast that left-handed hitters never hit in night games at Oracle Park. The homer was Casas' seventh since the All-Star break.
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Marco Luciano scored after his first big league hit in the sixth, but the rookie-filled bottom half of the lineup wasted a golden opportunity to tie the game in the seventh. After singles by J.D. Davis and Patrick Bailey, Blake Sabol grounded out and Brett Wisely and Luciano both struck out.
Old foe Kenley Jansen closed the Giants out in the ninth, striking out two of the three he faced. It was Jansen's 18th career save at Oracle Park.
Luci Leads The Way
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Luciano was 0-for-2 in his debut on Wednesday, but there was a silver lining there. His parents, Marco Sr. and Juana, couldn't get in from the Dominican Republic until Thursday, but they were sitting a few rows up from the field when their son smoked a 107 mph liner to third that Rafael Devers couldn't snag cleanly.
It was the 21-year-old's first hit in the big leagues, and when he took second on a wild pitch and raced around third on Michael Conforto's single, he had his first run. Luciano finished 1-for-3 with two strikeouts.
Back On Track
When Jarren Duran led off the game with an eight-pitch at-bat, Webb had to be thinking, "Here we go again." Last Saturday, the Nationals ran his pitch count up and knocked him out in the second inning, but Webb ended up having a quick first inning on Friday and he looked much more like his normal self.
Webb pitched 7 1/3 innings, allowing three earned on six hits. He got 14 outs on the ground and struck out four, which is a very Logan Webb line.
Joc Jam
The Red Sox have five lefties in their bullpen, but righty Chris Martin is having an outstanding first season in Boston and got the call in the eighth even though Joc Pederson and Michael Conforto were leading off and Gabe Kapler had already played the Austin Slater Card. Pederson immediately made the visiting dugout feel some regret.
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Batting leadoff because LaMonte Wade Jr. was out of the lineup, Pederson got an elevated fastball and crushed it into the visiting bullpen. The homer left the bat at 109.5 mph and was his third in the last seven games after a month without a homer.
