SAN FRANCISCO -- Two days after their Opening Night thumping at the hands of the Yankees, the Giants got a bit of a redo.
Even with the season underway, the Giants marketed Friday’s matinee at Oracle Park as their “Opening Day,” giving the club an opportunity to hold a more traditional pregame ceremony than the one Netflix orchestrated on Wednesday.
Both teams lined up for another round of introductions before the game, with soon-to-be Hall of Famer Jeff Kent on hand to throw out the ceremonial first pitch to former Giants manager Dusty Baker.
It didn’t make much of a difference for San Francisco, which was blanked by the Yankees, 3-0, for the second consecutive game to drop to 0-2 in the Tony Vitello era. It was the first time in the Giants’ 144-season history that they’ve been shut out in back-to-back games to start the year.
The Giants recorded only one hit -- a second-inning double by Heliot Ramos -- against New York right-hander Cam Schlittler, who struck out eight over 5 1/3 innings to outduel veteran left-hander Robbie Ray. San Francisco has only four hits this series, their lowest combined total through the first two games of a season since at least 1901.
“I think we’ve just got to be better,” Ramos said. “That’s about it. We’ve got to execute.”
The Giants have rolled out the same lineup in the first two games of the year, but Vitello said “there’s a good chance” the order will be tweaked against Yankees right-hander Will Warren in Saturday’s series finale at Oracle Park. Vitello took part of the blame for his club’s slow start, noting that he may have gotten too “fire and brimstone” during a team meeting a few days ago.
“I think some good words were shared, but I also think, as of right now, it’s a little emotional in there, and there’s definitely a lot of try-hards,” Vitello said. “Regardless of what the root of it is, you guys know the guys in the lineup as well or better than I do. Those guys are fully capable in there. Their results and numbers look like there’s not a lot of try-hard, but kind of the old baseball adage, there's probably too much.
“Maybe that stems from that conversation prior to the season, or maybe it just stems from all the Opening Day fanfare being the home team. But regardless, everybody wants it to change. There's a good chance there'd be some variance tomorrow based off the numbers, and obviously, a new pitcher on the mound.”
Ray matched Schlittler by opening his outing with five scoreless innings, but he surrendered a two-run home run to Aaron Judge in the sixth that gave the Yankees a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
“I challenged the best hitter in baseball, and he just happened to get me,” said Ray, who was charged with the loss after giving up two runs on five hits over 5 1/3 innings. “I feel like I had him thinking about it all game and just went to the well one too many times. I challenged him, and I can live with that.”
Judge, the reigning AL MVP, started the season 0-for-7 with five strikeouts before breaking out with his towering 405-foot shot to left field. Judge’s first hit of the year came after he issued a successful ABS challenge earlier in his at-bat against Ray.
Home-plate umpire Chad Fairchild initially called Ray’s 1-0 slider a strike, but Judge managed to get the call overturned, leaving the count at 2-0 instead of 1-1. Five pitches later, Judge went deep on a 3-2 fastball from Ray.
Does Ray think the overturned call changed the course of the at-bat?
“No, because I think I came right back and threw a slider in the zone that he took for a strike,” Ray said. “I don’t think it really changed anything.”
Vitello, though, believes it could have.
“I think it swayed it a little bit,” Vitello said. “It certainly shifted the count. And obviously with [Judge], there's a small margin you're working with, to an extent. But who knows. We can't relive it and know what it would be like if it wasn’t [overturned].”
Ray retired the next batter, Cody Bellinger, before he was pulled in favor of right-hander José Buttó, who yielded a solo shot to Giancarlo Stanton that extended the Yankees’ lead to 3-0.
The Giants had no counterpunch the rest of the way, but Ray said he doesn’t believe Vitello’s fiery speech has affected the team's performance thus far.
“We’re Major League players,” Ray said. “I think we can handle it. We can handle the ups and downs. It’s just one of those things that has happened the first two games. It’s not ideal, but you’ve got 160 games left.”