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Giants swept by White Sox to cap off ugly homestand originally appeared on NBC Sports Bayarea
The Giants returned home from the East Coast on June 24 with a 38-31 record and were just a half game out of a National League Wild Card spot with an eight-game homestand against three teams with sub-.500 records awaiting them.
It was the perfect opportunity for the Giants to beat up on subpar teams and make up ground (or at least keep pace) on the teams ahead of them.
That didn’t happen. In fact, the complete opposite occurred.
The Giants on Sunday were swept by the Chicago White Sox, capped off by a 13-4 loss at Oracle Park.
That brought to an end a 2-6 homestand to forget. The Giants, now 40-37, lost ground in the NL West and Wild Card races.
Nothing went right for the Giants over the last 10 days at home. The offense was quiet (until the ninth inning Sunday), the defense was poor and their starting pitching wasn’t the strength they hoped it would be.
With Anthony DeSclafani on the IL and headed for ankle surgery, the Giants went with a bullpen game Sunday and that went well for two innings. After John Brebbia and Jarlin Garcia each threw scoreless innings to begin the game, rookie Sean Hjelle ran into issues in the next three innings.
Hjelle allowed two runs in the third with the help of an error and another in the fourth. The White Sox loaded the bases against him to begin the fifth, forcing manager Gabe Kapler to bring in Sam Long.
Gavin Sheets greeted Long with a bases-clearing double. All three runs were charged to Hjelle. In 2-plus innings pitched Sunday, Hjelle allowed eight hits and six runs, four of which were earned. He didn’t walk anyone and struck out three.
While the White Sox banged out 17 hits, the Giants mustered just five hits and their first run of the game came on a booming double by Joc Pederson into Triple’s Alley, scoring Austin Slater.
Per Statcast, the ball traveled 414 feet and would have been a home run in every other MLB ballpark. Only Oracle could hold it. That’s the Giants’ luck.
Back-to-back-to-back-to-back doubles by Yermin Mercedes, Wilmer Flores, Mike Yastrzemski and Darin Ruf in the bottom of the ninth inning gave the remaining fans something to cheer about and padded the final score.
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The Giants now head out on the road for three against the Arizona Diamondbacks and four against the San Diego Padres. Maybe a week away from home is what Kapler’s team actually needs.
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