Low-stakes September underway, SF Giants’ comeback falls short

SAN FRANCISCO — September for the Giants is going to be about experience and opportunities, and they checked off both boxes Tuesday night.

At Oracle Park, Tristan Beck made his season debut out of the bullpen and former top prospect Marco Luciano logged his first MLB innings at second base — what could be his primary position moving forward.

Beck struck out four in 3 ⅓ innings, and Luciano went 1-for-4, including an RBI single that brought the Giants within one. Luis Matos, another September call-up, got a pair of pinch-hit plate appearances but struck out both times.

With late comeback rallies, the Giants’ young players got to feel a competitive game against a playoff contender.

Even though San Francisco isn’t yet mathematically eliminated from the postseason, the stakes are low. It would take a miracle run for the Giants to even play games with playoff ramifications in the final month of the season, and a 8-7 defeat to Arizona ultimately wasn’t the start of one.

“It was great to see the fight at the end,” manager Bob Melvin said postgame. “Obviously, we were down to our last at-bat with a chance to potentially win the game, when early on, you know, how are we going to cover these innings? We’ve been doing that all year. Just when you think maybe we let down a little bit with this game, we continue to dig really hard at the plate and finish off games.”

In a sparsely attended game  — the team announced a season-low paid crowd of 23,545 — the Giants scored five runs in the final two innings but needed even more to mount a comeback in a game they trailed from the jump.

Kyle Harrison (2.2 IP, 7H, 6ER, 3K, 1BB) pushed his season ERA from 4.22 to 4.56, describing his shortest career start as “just terrible from the get-go.” Randal Grichuk beat both him and Beck for home runs, powering the Diamondbacks offense to a 7-1 lead that home runs by Matt Chapman and Mike Yastrzemski only dented.

It took the Diamondbacks 10 minutes to touch home three times against Harrison. Geraldo Perdomo led off with a single up the middle, followed by Corbin Carroll’s double down the right-field line. Before Harrison could defuse the threat, Randal Grichuk took him deep into the visitor’s bullpen for a two-run homer.

The Giants got a run back in the bottom half of the first with a leadoff walk and Tyler Fitzgerald double into the right-field corner put Arizona starter Ryne Nelson in the same situation as Harrison: with no outs and runners on second and third.

But the Giants didn’t have a crooked number in them like the Diamondbacks did. And playing from behind against a divisional rival bound for the playoffs isn’t easy.

Arizona tacked on another run off Harrison in the second. That frame included Luciano’s first action at second base. The former top prospect is expected to play regularly at second in September, and he made a smooth transfer on a double play attempt, but his strong throw required LaMonte Wade Jr. to make a big scoop at first.

In the bottom half, Luciano took a hack at the first pitch he saw, getting jammed on an inside fastball and lining out to first. In the third, he bobbled a tough play up the middle while ranging to his right — a difficult play for a seasoned second baseman, let alone one finding his footing at the position. Luciano later committed an error — his sixth in 10 games in the field at the MLB level this year.

“It’s going to be a little bit of a learning process at the position,” Melvin said of Luciano.

Luciano is with the big-league club to show how he might be able to help the Giants next year. With San Francisco all but eliminated from the postseason, it makes sense to start thinking about 2025.

That’s partly why the Giants didn’t push Harrison too hard, pulling him before he could get out of the third inning. Already past his career high in innings, Harrison departed with two outs and the bases loaded in the third, having thrown a taxing 73 pitches.

“To get forced out that early, it hurts,” Harrison said. “They did a great job fighting back, and we were in it to the last pitch. I definitely didn’t do my job today.”

Beck replaced Harrison, making his season debut after an arm aneurysm prevented him from building off a promising 2023 season. Beck gave up a single – charging two more runs to Harrison – but had a lot to be proud of from his outing.

Beck’s looping curveball was effective, getting Josh Bell to strike out swinging and Corbin Carroll to go down looking.

Grichuk tagged a hanging breaking ball from Beck for his second home run of the night, putting Arizona up 7-1 with a wall-scraper to left. Roughly six months after surgery to address his arm aneurysm, Beck allowed one earned run in 3 ⅓ innings, punching out four while walking two.

The goal was always for Beck to return this season, even after the surgery prevented him from throwing (or lifting) for the longest time in his life. There wasn’t ligament or muscle damage, but the rarity of Beck’s ailment presented unique challenges in his long road back to the mound.

“Everybody throughout the whole process was really encouraging, really supportive,” Beck said. “Every little milestone — first day of catch, first bullpen, first game in Sacramento. It feels great. When I got activated, a lot of the guys came by and congratulated. And even today, after getting that first one out of the way, it was pretty special.”

Shortly after the season-low attendance was announced in the sixth inning, Matt Chapman smoked his 22nd home run of the season.

The Giants haven’t had a 30-homer hitter since Barry Bonds in 2004. There might not be many reasons for fans to come out to the ballpark in September, but Chapman’s quest to break a 20-year drought is as good as any.

For a moment, the Giants looked like they might have some magic up their sleeve in an otherwise tough night that included three errors. Yastrzemski led off the eighth with an opposite-field home run, and the Giants tacked on two more runs in the frame with singles from Heliot Ramos, Jerar Encarnacion, Patrick Bailey — on a perfect bunt — and Luciano.

But Matos struck out with two runners on to end the inning, reliever Erik Miller coughed up a run in the top of the ninth, and Encarnacion couldn’t drive in the game-tying run from second with the Giants’ last licks. What would have been a phenomenal comeback ended with his swinging strikeout.

Still, there’s value in just stepping up to the plate — and toeing the rubber — in a tight game. Miller, Matos, Luciano, Encarnacion and others should get to play through mistakes this month, and they’ll get to do so in a less-than-packed Oracle Park.