BALTIMORE -- On what even their manager admitted “was kind of a quirky night,” the Giants repeatedly received the wrong end of the breaks in Saturday’s 6-2 loss to the Orioles.
None more so than during the incident that forced second baseman Luis Arraez out of the game with a right wrist contusion.
The three-time NL All-Star and batting champion departed in the middle of the fifth inning, one frame after a bizarre sequence when Orioles baserunner Dylan Beavers incidentally kicked Arraez’s throwing hand as he prepared to field a grounder.
The 29-year-old Venezuelan was considered day to day for the moment after negative X-rays.
“It started to kind of go a little numb on him, I think,” Giants manager Tony Vitello said. “He’s going to battle through anything, so I think you’ve got to kind of pull [him out of it].”
The none-out sequence was a combination of insult and injury, beginning when Leody Taveras grounded toward Arraez off Logan Webb (1-2).
Second-base umpire Erich Bacchus called runner’s interference on Beavers, who went airborne while trying to evade the ball on his way to second and caught Arraez, who still fielded and threw to first ahead of Taveras reaching the bag.
The MLB right of way guidelines say the batter is called out if any member of the batting team interferes with a fielder’s ability to field a batted ball.
After the game, an MLB spokesperson said umpires ruled the play dead at the point Beavers interfered, and thus the throw to first was irrelevant.
Though maybe it didn’t feel like it should be.
“It almost is kind of like an NBA continuation play that we’re talking about there,” Vitello said. “The rule is the rule, as far as the dead ball.”
Arraez immediately clutched at his hand after throwing to first and received medical attention, but remained in the game for the moment, even making a nice back-handed stop of Coby Mayo’s RBI forceout two batters later.
Mayo’s productive out put the Orioles in front. He scored on Jeremiah Jackson’s RBI double to make it 4-2.
Arraez was replaced before the bottom of the fifth by Christian Koss after singling in the top half.
As for the other rough breaks?
An inning earlier, Webb gave up the first homer he had allowed in seven starts, a solo shot that Gunnar Henderson, the MLB’s early home run leader, pulled just far enough to right that it caught the top edge of the out-of-town scoreboard.
“I shook a couple times, I just had a pitch in mind,” Webb said of the cutter he threw up and in on a 1-1 count. “I don’t know if me shaking made him think. I think I’d beaten with that pitch. And I just wanted to, at that moment, throw that pitch. And he got to it.”
The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani was the last batter to take Webb deep on Sept. 13, 2025.
And in the top of the fourth, Jung Hoo Lee came up with men on first and second and jumped all over Chris Bassitt’s 2-2 fastball.
Only he connected too purely with it, his lined single reaching left fielder Taylor Ward quickly on the bounce and permitting the runners to advance only 90 feet.
Heliot Ramot followed with an RBI groundout, but after Patrick Bailey’s grounder ended the inning, it felt more like a missed chance on a night San Francisco finished 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position.
“I would say the swings were fine with runners in scoring position for the most part," Vitello said. "It was just, we never really got something strung along like we had on other nights.”