SF Giants shut out in first game with new City Connect jerseys
SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants’ original City Connect jerseys were something of a good luck charm given they went 30-16 with the bright orange and white “creamsicle” threads. The remixed threads don’t have that status quite yet.
Landen Roupp allowed one earned run over a career-high six innings and Hayden Birdsong followed with three scoreless innings of relief, but San Francisco was shut out for a second consecutive night and lost to the Cincinnati Reds, 1-0, dropping its first series of the year.
Despite Roupp throwing the first quality start of his career, the Giants went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and Roupp got stuck with the hard-luck loss as the Reds’ Nick Lodolo tossed six scoreless innings.
San Francisco was close to plating a run when Heliot Ramos drove a line drive to the right-field warning track in the bottom of the fifth inning that would’ve easily scored Casey Schmitt, but Cincinnati’s Jake Fraley made a diving, over-the-shoulder catch to keep San Francisco scoreless. Sam Huff led off the bottom of the eighth with a single and was pinch-ran for by Christian Koss, but the miniature rally evaporated when Ramos hit into a double play.
The Reds generated their lone run of the ballgame against Roupp in the top of the third when Spencer Steer scored on Jose Trevino’s groundout. Casey Schmitt, playing just his third professional game at first base, saved Roupp a run in the top of the fifth inning when Trevino tried to execute the squeeze play with runners at the corners and one out, but Schmitt charged hard and fired home to Huff, who applied the tag and denied a run.
Schmitt also recorded two hits at the plate, his first being a 111.4 mph double that was just below his career-high exit velocity of 111.6 mph.