Giants made positive strides during 9-game trip, head home for rivalry series

WASHINGTON -- The Giants have struggled to consistently play their best brand of baseball during the nascent stages of the regular season. But they saw glimpses of their most aspirational selves during their first multi-city road trip of the year.

They showed some newfound fire and grit while reeling off three in a row, though both went missing in a flat 3-0 loss that prevented the Giants from pulling off a three-game series sweep of the Nationals on Sunday afternoon at Nationals Park.

San Francisco’s offense erupted for 17 runs over their first two games against Washington, which ranks last in the National League with a 5.65 ERA, but the club’s bats couldn’t break through against opener PJ Poulin, right-hander Miles Mikolas and left-hander Andrew Alvarez on Sunday.

The Giants (9-13) outhit the Nationals, 8-7, but they finished 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position and left 10 men on base en route to their fourth shutout loss of the year. They also didn’t play their crispest defense, as the Nationals opened the scoring in the fifth after Heliot Ramos couldn’t come up with Keibert Ruiz’s drive to left field, allowing it to fall for a double that knocked in the speedy Nasim Nuñez from second.

Shortstop Willy Adames almost kept the Nationals off the board by making a strong relay throw to try to nab Nuñez at the plate, but catcher Patrick Bailey couldn’t hang onto the ball when he spun around to apply the tag, giving Washington a 1-0 lead.

“On plays at the plate, sometimes I think you can get quick and try to make the tag,” Bailey said. “I feel like I was in a good spot. Willy made a great throw. Obviously, I’d like to make that play.”

Left-hander Robbie Ray made his only mistake of the game two batters later, surrendering a two-run shot to Curtis Mead that put the Giants in a three-run hole.

“It’s tough because I feel like I made one bad pitch today,” Ray said. “That was it. I made every pitch that I wanted to make except that one.”

The lackluster showing came one day after the Giants managed to outlast the Nationals in a 7-6, 12-inning thriller on Saturday, though manager Tony Vitello said he didn’t see any kind of hangover effect from the previous game.

“Towards the end, I think we got a little beat down by the lack of results on offense and being down on the scoreboard, as well,” Vitello said. “But I didn’t sense some of the things that as a coach, you’d want to correct or you don’t like that maybe we had going on earlier in the season. The vibe and the approach we had going into the game in the first five or six innings was really, really good. It’s just a lot easier to be energetic or celebrate or look like things are going well for you when you’re getting rewarded or you find a way to manufacture stuff on offense.”

While they would have preferred a happy flight back to San Francisco, the Giants believe they learned something about themselves while going 4-5 over their nine-game swing through Baltimore, Cincinnati and Washington.

They played with more attitude and edge against the Reds, which was exemplified by the benches-clearing incident between left-hander Erik Miller and Sal Stewart at Great American Ball Park on Thursday. Their bullpen -- a big question mark coming into the season -- looked dependable while logging a 2.04 ERA over their last 11 games, the second-best mark in the Majors behind only the Reds.

Their offense showed signs of life following resurgent performances from regulars like Ramos, Jung Hoo Lee and Casey Schmitt, though the Giants are still waiting for a similar breakout from three-time All-Star Rafael Devers, who is batting .225 with a .558 OPS over 22 games this year.

“I think it was real positive as far as revealing identity, real positive as far as getting on the right track of playing good baseball,” Vitello said of the road trip as a whole. “Really, some good things from our pitching, in particular the bullpen.”

The next step for the Giants will be to continue to build on the positives and find a way to put it all together against the MLB-best Dodgers (15-6), who will be coming to town for the start of a big rivalry series on Tuesday night.

Landen Roupp, who has a stellar 0.75 ERA over his last two outings, will match up with fellow right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the series opener at Oracle Park, giving the Giants an early chance to see how they measure up against the two-time defending World Series champions.

“I think you want to hunt down the best,” Vitello said. “If you're going out hunting, you're looking for big game, call it. I think when you're competing, whether it's basketball, hockey, football, whatever, you want to know who the best is, and then you want to see what you can do against them.”