Giants snap losing streak, beat Mets in extra innings; Wilmer Flores injured

San Francisco Chronicle​

3 days ago

NEW YORK — Perhaps a shakeup at the trade deadline, with three of the longest tenured players departing, was the kick in the rear the San Francisco Giants needed.
Nothing much was working before that, with the Giants going a major-league worst 13-26 since June 14 and going winless on a six-game homestand for the first time since April 1896, when they dropped three to the Phillies and three to the Boston Beaneaters. After dealing away relievers Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval and outfielder Mike Yastrzemski this week, though, things turned: Dom Smith's pinch-hit RBI single off Edwin Diaz in the 10th inning gave San Francisco a 4-3 win over the NL East-leading Mets, who'd just swept the Giants last weekend.
New Giants closer Randy Rodriguez, plopped into the spot with the Doval deal, sealed the victory, though it wasn't easy against the top of the Mets order. He got Brandon Nimmo to pop up, hit Francisco Lindor, got another pop-up from Juan Soto, walked Pete Alonso to load the bases and struck out Ronny Mauricio with a 100-mph fastball.
San Francisco led much of the way Friday before the Mets tied it with an Alonso homer in the seventh and two in the eighth off Joey Lucchesi, fueled by Soto's hard comebacker that clanged off Lucchesi and bounced into the outfield to send in one run. The Giants couldn't take advantage of two hits in the ninth off new Mets set-up man Ryan Helsley, but Ryan Walker worked a 1-2-3 inning to force extra innings.
All-Star Robbie Ray is one of the club's few consistently strong contributors this season, and he was again excellent Friday, allowing just one run in seven innings on the Alonso homer. But the star-crossed Giants also may have lost one of their regulars to a leg injury: Wilmer Flores, who'd singled, doubled and walked, left the game after appearing to pull a muscle while hustling out an infield single in the eight.
Flores was the Giants' top run producer the first two months of the season but his RBIs had dried up over the past 52 games, when he drove in just 18 runs.
Flores, who remains wildly popular in New York, where he began his career, was examined by trainer Dave Groeschner before leaving the game.
Even with all the moves this week, the goals for the season are unchanged, according to manager Bob Melvin, who contended that president of baseball operations Buster Posey had left the team with enough significant contributors to have success.
'All our core pieces that we've signed here for the long term are all still here, so the mindset of the team has not changed on how we go out there and play and what our goals are,' he said. 'For Buster, it was tough balancing the now and the future, but he didn't take away enough of the now for us not to have the same aspirations that we did.
'We didn't add but we've always felt like we've got the group here to be able to move forward and make a postseason bid.'
Justin Verlander, the oldest player in baseball, has been with underperforming teams at times in his 20-year career. 'It's really difficult,' he said Friday. 'We can't blame Buster, we kind of did this to ourselves. It's just a shame with the way the season started to be sellers at this point.'
Verlander is one of two remaining free-agents-to-be, along with Flores. He knew he might be traded, as he was from the Mets to the Astros in mid-2023.
'I thought there might be a chance' of a deal, said Verlander, who has a no-trade clause. 'I wasn't really pressing the issue one way or the other, it was just like 'Let the cards fall where they may.' I'm enjoying being in San Francisco. I'm enjoying living there. My family's there, we have a newborn. It wouldn't be the easiest life decision to go somewhere else right now, which is kind of like what the universe figured out.'
Third baseman Matt Chapman, part of the core group of position players in place through at least 2030, said no one is writing off this season.
'We still believe in the group in the room, we still have a really good team, really good pitching,' he said. 'No matter what, we're going to go out there and try to win every game, and there's no reason why we wouldn't think that we were still in it.
'We're building something here. I think this season is still within reach for us. If they'd wanted to, they could have traded Robbie or some other guys, but they didn't. So I think that they still believe in us.'
'Maybe that's part of the message to these guys: we've got to do things a little differently,' Melvin said.
'I think we can spin it as a positive,' Chapman said. 'We have to. I think it could take pressure off, because there's a sense that all the pressure's on all the other guys in our division. We can go in and play with enough here and with nothing to lose.'