Belt, Blue Jays tag Logan Webb for five-run first inning, ship SF Giants to first highway lack of June | Baseball
TORONTO — Brandon Belt said before the start of this series that he hoped to beat Logan Webb and joked, “I just want to embarrass his whole family.” The former Giants first baseman certainly did his best and batted at his 739 total feet of flyballs in their first two appearances, but Toronto didn’t have to leave the stadium to beat Webb harder than any other team this season.
The Blue Jays brought nine men to the plate and tagged Webb for five runs in the first inning, putting the Giants in a rare hole that proved too deep to climb out. The Giants lost the middlegame of their series 6-1 and lost away at Oracle Park for the first time since Memorial Day weekend. They broke a San Francisco-era record of 10 consecutive away wins.
A night after the Giants defeated the Blue Jays’ top starter Kevin Gausman with a game of bullpen, Toronto dosed San Francisco with the same medicine. A quartet of Blue Jays relievers limited the Giants to one run on six hits — three by LaMonte Wade Jr. — or the number Toronto hit in the first inning alone.
Austin Slater, coming on for Michael Conforto (left hamstring strain) early in the second half, made the Giants’ only run with a 402-foot solo shot over Tim Horton’s shield in right midfield. The Giants only got two other runners into goal position, Wade with a wild pitch after his leadoff single in the first and Patrick Bailey with a scoring double in the seventh inning.
The Blue Jays’ five earned runs in the first inning was the most Webb had ever conceded in a single inning and represented their worst season for a single game.
Belt entered the box at the bottom of the first pass, a run was already on the board and a man was on first base. At first it looked like he’d executed his intentions and blasted a ball deep into left center field, but had to settle for an RBI double as the ball landed a few yards from the wall. He fell just short again on his second attack, sending Luis Matos onto the runway in midfield for the lowest point of the game.
As Belt returned to the dugout, he appeared to exchange a few words with his former teammate up the hill.
While the Blue Jays marked Webb for six hits — four doubles — in the first inning, Belt’s 98.8 mph two-bagger was their hardest-hit ball of the inning until a 109-mph line-drive single from Danny Jansen won the last run. According to Statcast, George Springer’s double to lead from the inning and Daulton Varshos, driving in Belt, each had a 16% or less chance of hitting. It was only the fourth time in the Statcast era (since 2015) that a pitcher had allowed four doubles in an inning and neither registered an exit speed of 100 mph or more.
After the big first inning, Webb managed to give up 11 of the last 13 batters he faced but left Ross Stripling to start the sixth inning. Stripling, recurring for the first time since May 17 (low back strain), won the last three innings but conceded a run on three hits and had three strikeouts.
The first inning cost the Giants more than the game. Conforto was sent off for a pinch hitter early in the second period after chasing several balls down right field, including a foul by Matt Chapman that catapulted Conforto into foul territory and eventually into the waist-high wall while he was recorded the second of the inning.
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