What we learned as Giants' comeback attempt falls short in tough loss to Padres

What we learned as Giants' comeback attempt falls short in tough loss to Padres originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

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SAN DIEGO — On a Tuesday night in April, the Padres drew 47,345 fans to Petco Park, the second-largest crowd in the ballpark’s history. It certainly helped that they gave out Tony Gwynn bobbleheads, but still, this has become the norm in San Diego, where they already have 15 sellouts this season. 

It was a huge crowd, and for most of the night, a very happy one.

The Giants fell behind early and their latest comeback attempt fell short. In their first game of the year against an NL West opponent, they lost 7-4 and learned a valuable lesson. The comebacks won’t be as easy against the San Diego bullpen. 

The Padres scored three runs on Logan Webb in the first and two more in the fourth, but as they always do, the Giants crawled back. They got within a run in the top of the sixth on LaMonte Wade Jr.‘s double, turning it into a battle of the two best bullpens in baseball, but the Padres extended their lead to three in the seventh when Xander Bogaerts snuck a two-run homer over the short wall in left. The homer was Bogaerts’ first of the year, and the two runs were the first two allowed by Randy Rodriguez this season.

Adrian Morejon struck out a pair in a clean seventh and Jason Adam did the same in the eighth. Robert Suarez came on in the ninth and had a 1-2-3 inning for his 11th save in 11 chances.

Here are the takeaways from a loss that drops the Giants to 19-11 this season:

Not His Favorite Opponent 

Webb’s 150th career start was also his 15th appearance against the Padres, and the last few have been a little rough. In his three starts before Tuesday, he allowed 27 hits over 17 innings, and that theme continued. Webb gave up nine hits, including four two-out singles in the three-run first inning. 

With the five earned runs on his line, Webb’s ERA on the season jumped from 1.98 to 2.83. He at least had a partner in Nick Pivetta, who went from 1.20 to 1.78 after getting knocked out in the sixth. 

The five earned were a season-high for Webb, but there was some bad luck involved. Only one of the nine Padres hits against Webb had an exit velocity of more than 100 mph and four were under 80 mph, including a softly-hit double. 

Breakout Game? 

Willy Adames was taking much better swings on the homestand, giving some additional hope to a coaching staff that has never been all that worried. Adames has always been a slow starter, but it looks like he’s coming around. 

In his first career NL West matchup, Adames opened the scoring for the Giants by hitting a high homer that just cleared the wall in the deepest part of the yard.

Adames then led off the sixth with a double that ignited a three-run inning. The double had the highest exit velocity (107.2 mph) of all of Adames’ hits this season and the homer was second (105 mph). Four of his five hardest-hit balls this season have come in the past four games. 

Breakout Game, Part II? 

Wade entered the night with an incredibly low batting average on balls in play (.135), a sign that he has dealt with a lot of poor luck early on. That’s never been more clear than in the last game of the homestand, when he just missed hitting a grand slam and then a two-run double. On Tuesday, one of his liners finally found a gap.

With two outs and two strikes in the top of the sixth, Wade reached out and hit a slider down the line, bringing Jung Hoo Lee and Heliot Ramos around to get the Giants within a run.

Wade had driven in just eight runs over his previous 25 games.

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