Tatis, Machado Bury SF Early in 6-4 San Diego Win
San Diego put up five runs in the first two innings and never looked back, beating San Francisco 6-4 on September 13. The story of the night was a second inning that featured a Manny Machado home run and a Logan Webb implosion that effectively ended the game before it started.
The damage started in the first. Jackson Merrill doubled to left, scoring Fernando Tatis Jr. and Harris, with Machado advancing to third — a swing that dropped San Francisco's win probability from 42% to 25% before the Giants had even recorded two outs. That single play set the tone for everything that followed. San Diego walked into the second inning already ahead 2-0 and showed no interest in slowing down. Tatis Jr. singled to center to score Taylor, making it 3-0. Then Machado unloaded a 392-foot home run to left, scoring Tatis Jr. and pushing the lead to 5-0. Logan Webb, who finished with a line of 5.0 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 1 BB, and 7 K, absorbed all of that punishment. Six earned runs allowed is a rough night by any measure, and it appears Webb simply didn't have his command when San Diego's lineup was locked in and hunting.
San Francisco answered briefly. Andrew Knizner hit a 409-foot home run to left in the second, scoring Whitcomb to make it 5-2, and the Giants chipped away with single runs in the fifth and sixth — an Eldridge groundout scoring Koss, then a Koss single to center scoring Bandura. But San Diego had already added an insurance run in the fourth when Tatis Jr. singled to center to score Salas, stretching the lead to 6-2. The Giants' late-game rally got them to 6-4, but that was as close as it got.
Tatis Jr. finished 3-for-4 with 2 RBI and 2 runs scored — he looked like the best player on the field and it wasn't particularly close. Machado went 1-for-3 with the home run and 2 RBI. On the pitching side, Nick Pivetta gave San Diego 4.0 innings with 5 hits, 2 earned runs, and 5 strikeouts — serviceable enough given the run support. Wandy Peralta tossed 1.1 scoreless innings out of the bullpen, allowing nothing and striking out one. For San Francisco, Koss went 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run, and Eldridge was 2-for-5 with an RBI, but the offense never found a way to manufacture the kind of big inning San Diego put together twice. The Giants' bullpen — specifically Matt Wilkinson, who threw 3.0 shutout innings before Webb entered — looks like the wrong half of the pitching staff got the early work.