Melvin, Giants infielders address ‘unacceptable’ miscommunication originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN DIEGO — After five easy outs on just 17 pitches, Ryan Walker broke out his save celebration, one of the more creative ones in today’s game. He turned an imaginary knob and looked up at the imaginary water.
Game is over. Turn the shower on.
After this one, it was more appropriate than ever. The Giants had a lot to wash off, even after getting a 7-6 win and a series victory at Petco Park.
The Padres nearly completed a massive comeback in large part because Tyler Fitzgerald and Marco Luciano collided on a pop-up to second base with two outs in the seventh, allowing a pair of runs to score. As if the play itself wasn’t frustrating enough, Fitzgerald and Luciano exchanged words as they descended into the dugout, going back and forth until Matt Williams stepped in to calm everyone down.
It was a sequence that left manager Bob Melvin livid. The Giants have played sloppy baseball in the second half, and the latest big mistake led to Melvin calling on his overused closer with one out in the eighth inning.
“It’s bad communication. It doesn’t matter whose fault it was, it was bad communication,” Melvin said. “It’s unacceptable. It’s just bad. Bad baseball. We’ve got to clean it up. Our defense has to get better.”
Fitzgerald and Luciano both stood in front of their lockers later and addressed the incident with reporters. As with Melvin, they agreed that it wouldn’t happen again, and both expressed regret that they didn’t argue in a more private setting. Fitzgerald started his session by making it clear that he had made the mistake. He ranged too far over from his shortstop position, but said that was because Luciano wasn’t calling him off.
Luciano said he was calling for the ball, but the noise at Petco Park kept Fitzgerald from hearing him. He also was waving for it, but Fitzgerald couldn’t see that because, like Luciano, he was looking up at the sky.
“It’s just basics, it’s communicating, it goes back to high school and college and the thing I’ve been taught in this game is communicating,” Fitzgerald said. “If anything, you want to be more on the loud side of things. We just don’t have that connection right now up the middle to where we’re communicating on the same page but I’m not blaming it on him.
“I’m trying to get across the point that we have to be louder, because if I don’t hear anything I’m going to run over there and try to make the play. Again, it wasn’t my ball. It’s my mistake at the end of the day. Hopefully going forward we’ll just scream as loud as we possibly can.”
The mistake came on a day when Melvin sent out a lineup filled with rookies and second-year players. Early on, that looked like a disaster, but Fernando Tatis Jr.‘s own error on a sun-ball ignited a six-run rally that included homers from Matt Chapman, Jerar Encarnacion and Luis Matos.
The Giants were rolling and Spencer Bivens did his part, supplying a second strong spot start in as many chances this season. The dropped pop-up in the seventh cut into the deficit and Camilo Doval gave up a two-run homer to draw the Padres within one. It pained Melvin to try and get five outs from Walker, but that was likely the only way the Giants were walking out of Petco Park with a win on Sunday. Walker started his afternoon by picking off the tying run on first base.
“He’s a guy that I’ve played with coming up for years,” Fitzgerald said. “You would have never guessed this three or four years ago but look at him now. It’s just really cool to see. He definitely calmed it down a little bit.”
Walker splashed cold water on a heated dugout, but the incident will have some legs. Fitzgerald and Luciano planned to talk about the play and Melvin said he would talk to both players.
“I’ll handle it,” he said.
Earlier in the day, he had to have a talk with another young player. Heliot Ramos wasn’t running hard on his fly ball to right, which kept him from reaching third when Tatis whiffed. Melvin talked to him, although Ramos did end up scoring on Chapman’s homer.
“He said he’ll never do that again,” Melvin said. “Look, he plays every single day, he plays hard every single day. A fly ball to Tatis is typically an out, but we did discuss here, too, that the sun in right field could be tough. He couldn’t be more apologetic. He’s a guy that plays hard, he’s a great kid, he learns.”
That’s what this month has become about for the Giants, who picked up their first series win since the middle of August. Luciano is learning second base at the big league level. Even Fitzgerald doesn’t have that much recent experience at shortstop, as the Giants tried to turn him into a utility guy in spring training and the first half. Encarnacion, who hit a crucial three-run homer, made his first big league appearance at first base.
That was one of seven consecutive hits off Joe Musgrove, who started his day by striking out six of the first 10 batters he faced. There was some jawing late, but the Giants still managed to secure a happy flight back to San Francisco.
“At the end of the day we played a great game besides that one pop-up. I’m really excited about the win overall,” Fitzgerald said. “If that didn’t happen, everybody would be, like, super-happy right now. Don’t let that take away from how good the rest of the team played.”