LOS ANGELES -- Robbie Ray's long-awaited return nearly went off the rails in the first inning Wednesday night. A couple hours later, Ray had his first win as a Giant, and the team had the momentum it has been searching for since the MLB All-Star break.
After dropping four of their first five on this road trip, the Giants took a combined no-hitter into the seventh and then ran away from the Los Angeles Dodgers for an 8-3 victory. It's just one win, and they're still five games under .500, but Ray was so dominant that it wasn't hard to see why the Giants have been reluctant to shift into sell mode with the trade deadline approaching.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
The lefty threw five no-hit innings in his return from Tommy John surgery, bolstering a rotation that finally will be back at full strength next week when Alex Cobb returns. Over 23 innings this month, Ray and fellow Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell have allowed just six combined hits.
With Tyler Glasnow on the other side, it looked to be another slow offensive night, but Matt Chapman got the Giants on the board with a scorched solo shot and the lineup took full advantage of the Dodgers leaving struggling righty Yohan Ramirez out on the mound during a messy eighth.
San Francisco Giants
They added six runs to their one-run lead, reaching their highest run total on the road since a 9-3 win in Phoenix on June 5. The lineup had scored just 11 total runs during the first five games of this road trip.
Well, They Won That Trade
Given Anthony DeSclafani's season-ending injury and Mitch Haniger's negative-WAR return to Seattle, the Giants don't need much at all from Ray to emphatically win that offseason trade. At the moment, it looks like it has a chance to go down as a heist.
After making it through a very, very shaky first, Ray was absolutely dominant. He struck out eight, twice blowing fastballs past Shohei Ohtani, including one at 96 mph on his final pitch of the night.
Ray cruised through the rehab from Tommy John, and the Giants were confident that would allow him to hit the ground running. After the first inning, he certainly looked like the guy who won the AL Cy Young Award before signing a massive deal with the Mariners.
Ray retired 14 straight after a walk of Andy Pages pushed a run across. His fastball averaged 95 mph and topped out at 97, and he got 22 swinging strikes on the night, including 13 on his two breaking balls.
Roller Coaster Return
The first inning was Ray's first on a big league mound since March 31, 2023, and he nearly didn't make it to the second. The Giants had two mound meetings before Ray recorded a second out, and after his 32nd pitch, reliever Sean Hjelle went to the bullpen mound to start getting loose.
Ray got an inning-ending pop-up on the next pitch, but it still was a wild -- literally -- first frame back. Ohtani kicked things off with a deep fly ball to left on Ray's first pitch that was caught on the track. Ray then went hit-by-pitch, walk, hit-by-pitch, walk to get the Dodgers on the board, but he bounced back, striking out Miguel Vargas and getting Chris Taylor to pop up. Ray mixed in a couple of wild pitches during the long inning and threw just 15 of his 33 pitches for strikes.
After all of that, Ray came out in the second and struck out the side. He ended the inning by blowing an elevated fastball past Ohtani.
A More Traditional Fitz
There's a lot of power in Tyler Fitzgerald's game, as he has shown over the past week, but his best tool is his speed, and he used it to help the Giants take the lead in the fourth inning.
Fitzgerald hit a low liner to right field that Teoscar Hernandez was a bit slow to get to, and he never stopped running. The throw was close, but Fitzgerald slid in safely with a hustle double, allowing him to score on Mike Yastrzemski's single.
Fitzgerald came up short in his bid to become the first rookie in MLB history to homer in six consecutive games, but he had the double and two walks, raising his OBP to .400 and his OPS to 1.002.
Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast