SAN FRANCISCO – There were a litany of reasons that Robbie Ray could have pointed out to explain his shaky outing against the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday.
The 32-year-old was making only his second start since undergoing multiple operations on his pitching arm, including Tommy John surgery 14 months ago.
And after a solid season debut against the Dodgers last week in Los Angeles, the former AL Cy Young Award winner might not have had the same intensity and passion when taking the mound against Oakland.
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“But he won’t make excuses for that,” Giants manager Bob Melvin said.
True to the point, Ray was in no mood for excuses after he was tagged for three home runs in a 5-2 loss at Oracle Park.
The left-hander was in a solemn and straight-forward mood in San Francisco’s clubhouse when he succinctly summed up his night.
“Just bad execution tonight,” Ray said. “I felt like a left some pitches over the plate that, if I execute them, it’s probably an out. They made me pay for it.”
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Ray wasn’t nearly as sharp and crisp as he was against the NL-West leading Dodgers last Wednesday. In that game – Ray’s first after spending the first 102 games of the 2024 MLB season rehabbing from his injuries and surgery – he pitched five hitless innings and had eight strikeouts while allowing one run.
Against the A’s, Ray had an uneven first inning before his good fortune took a wrong turn in the second.
Oakland’s Daz Cameron homered off Ray leading off the inning. After Lawrence Butler added a solo shot with one out in the third, Ray worked his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the fourth before giving up another home run, this time a two-run blast by A’s slugger Brent Rooker.
Just like that, Ray’s ERA leaped from 1.80 to 4.82.
“They made him work some,” Melvin said. “He threw a lot of pitches and he made some mistakes [and] they hit some homers, which they’ve done for a while now.”
Ray indeed gave credit to Oakland’s lineup. The A’s entered the day tied for fourth in home runs (138) in MLB. They had scored a whopping 50.3 percent of their runs (226 of 449) on homers, the highest percentage in the majors.
They certainly proved that stat is no fluke against the Giants.
In addition to the three home runs off Ray, the A’s got to reliever Taylor Rogers for a solo blast in the eighth.
And while it wasn’t just Ray getting lit up, the veteran pitcher manned up and shouldered the blame himself.
“I felt good coming into this game,” Ray said. “My arm felt great, my body felt great. Just poor execution.”
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