Giants ace Logan Webb entered Fenway Park with an MLB-best streak of 19 scoreless innings. That stretch quickly ended Tuesday night, and another began: the Red Sox scored a single run in each of the first four innings.
That 4-0 deficit held up as the final score in the Giants’ second shutout loss this season.
So began the Giants’ longest road trip of the season, with upcoming stops in Philadelphia (four games) and Colorado (three games) after this three-game series in Boston, their first visit since 2019.
While the Giants’ bats got silenced by baseball’s best pitching staff, Webb (3-2) appeared to struggle with his grip on the 52-degree evening.
Once Wilyer Abreu ripped a two-out, RBI triple off the right-field wall in the fourth, that marked Webb’s 91st and final pitch of the night. Overall, he yielded four runs on nine hits and three walks. Webb’s ERA climbed from 2.33 to 2.98, and he exited without a winning decision for a third consecutive start.
Webb’s counterpart, Cooper Criswell, retired the first 10 batters he faced. He then issued a full-count walk to LaMonte Wade in the fourth, but Matt Chapman next grounded into a double play.
In the fifth, Michael Coforto broke up the no-hit bid with a single, but then it was Patrick Bailey’s turn to ground into a momentum-ending double play. Jorge Soler followed with a two-out. single, Thairo Estrada lined out to end any perceived rally.
It was that kind of night for the Giants’ bats, a night in which Jung Hoo Lee twice hit deep shots caught on the warning track.
An eighth-inning replay reversal erased the Giants’ lone highlight: a potential triple play that would have been their first since 2008. Matt Chapman fielded a three-hop grounder, stepped on third base, threw to Estrada at second base, and an ensuing throw to first was deemed late, by half a step.
After Webb’s exit, the Red Sox managed only two hits against relievers Sean Hjelle, Taylor Rogers and Landen Roupp.
Criswell worked with a quick pace, and Giants’ batters went down in rapid succession through three innings. He recorded four consecutive strikeouts his initial time through the bottom of the order, including No. 8 hitter Mike Yastrezmski, who made his first Fenway appearance since a 2019 sentimental debut where his grandfather, Carl, played.
Leading off the sixth, Yastrezmski got hit on his left wrist as the first batter to face Brennan Bernardino. Potential injury aside, it was an otherwise welcome pitching change. Criswell allowed just two hits, walked one, struck out four and lowered his ERA to 1.65.
Webb yielded a two-out, RBI single in the first to Rob Refsnyder, who drove a 3-1 changeup up the middle. The ball took a wicked hop over Thairo Estrada, then Tyler O’Neill slid home safely ahead of Jung Hoo Lee’s throw for a 1-0 lead.
Another two-out, RBI grounder put the Red Sox up 2-0 in the second inning, with Jarren Duran driving in Reese McGuire.
Inning No. 3 put the Giants in a 3-0 hole, on another RBI single from Refsnyder, but only after Webb yielded an opposite-field, leadoff double to Abreu.
The Red Sox appeared to score a fourth time on a two-out hit, but Giants’ skipper Bob Melvin won a replay challenge that nullified Duran’s run-scoring, infield single to end the fifth and keep the deficit at 4-0.
The Giants were shut out only once previously this season on April 6 at home to the Padres. They’ve yet to win three straight this season.
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MEDICAL UPDATES
Blake Snell (left adductor strain) is slated to throw a bullpen session Wednesday in San Francisco, a week after going on the injured list.
Other medical updates from the team: Alex Cobb (right flexor strain) is rehabilitating in San Francisco, while Robbie Ray and Austin Warren continue their recovery in Arizona from left-elbow ligament surgery, both throwing bullpen sessions twice a week. Tristan Beck (vascular injury) will be examined by Dr. Jason Lee at Stanford on Wednesday.
