SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants came up short in their first seven tries to get back to .500. After finally returning to even on Monday night, they came up short Tuesday in their first attempt to find a winning record.
The Giants went 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position and had one of their worst pitching nights of the season, losing 11-5 to the Washington Nationals to fall to 57-58.
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The Giants have followed the lead of their pitching in the second half, but it was a rough -- and very long -- night for their staff. Rookie Hayden Birdsong didn't have his command and got knocked around in his first start back in the big leagues, and the Nationals made the Giants' bullpen sweat it out, too.
Rookie Randy Rodriguez entered for Birdsong and threw a career-high 56 pitches over 2 2/3 innings, and Sean Hjelle needed a season-high 42 pitches to get through his 2 2/3. Overall, five Giants pitchers threw 181 pitches in just eight innings.
A couple of homers gave the Giants an early 4-0 lead, but the Nationals wiped that away in the second inning and kept pushing. After their scoreless first, they scored in five of their next seven innings.
Rough Return
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The Giants optioned Birdsong and then did some nifty accounting to bring him back for a doubleheader last week. It was a move to get the 22-year-old some extra rest before returning to be in the rotation for the rest of the second half, and it meant that from July 21 to Tuesday, Birdsong made just one start. He didn't make it out of the third inning on his first night back on the 26-man roster.
Birdsong had a relatively quick first, but the Nationals made him throw 40 pitches in the second inning, scoring five runs. The big blast was a three-run homer from C.J. Abrams that came on a fastball that was well above the zone. At 4.42 feet, it was the highest pitch hit for a homer this season in MLB.
Birdsong came out for the third but was pulled after another homer and a walk. He was charged with seven earned, matching his total from five starts in July. Birdsong entered the night with a 2.97 ERA but walked off at 4.73.
Madison Bumgarner and Logan Webb are among the Giants aces who have had rough games at Nationals Park over the last decade. The Giants have to hope that that's all this was for Birdsong, because they have no safety net for their rotation after trading Alex Cobb to the Cleveland Guardians.
Conforto Crushes
Heliot Ramos got the Giants on the board with a solo blast and Michael Conforto made it a four-run first with a three-run homer off MacKenzie Gore. The homer was Conforto's 12th, and at 113.2 mph, it was his hardest homer of the year by nearly six mph.
Conforto has been streaky this year, and he appears to be entering one of his hot stretches. He had five hits over the final two games in Cincinnati and reached base twice in Monday's win. He nearly homered again later in Tuesday's game and finished 2-for-3 with three RBI and a walk.
Hello, Old Friend
Derek Law once was the Closer of the Future at Oracle Park, but his strong rookie season ended up being his high water mark as a Giant. Law struggled in 2017 and 2018 and was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2019 in exchange for Kevin Pillar, and in recent years he also has pitched for the Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers and Cincinnati Reds.
He appears to have found a home in the nation's capital. Law threw two hitless innings in relief of Gore on Tuesday, lowering his ERA to 3.07. He is tied with Ryan Walker for the MLB lead in appearances at 57, and the heavy workload in one of the league's hottest cities doesn't appear to be taking a toll. Law topped out at 96.5 mph Tuesday.
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