Rockies ambush Keaton Winn, send SF Giants home on sour note

Ten pitches was all it took to spoil the Giants’ trip home from Colorado.

After fouling off Keaton Winn’s first pitch of the fourth inning Thursday afternoon, Ezequiel Tovar lined the next one into the vast tundra of Coors Field’s center field alley, and only seven pitches later, Brenton Doyle had driven home the sixth run of the inning on a drive that cleared the wall in center and kicked the Giants’ bullpen into overdrive.

The Rockies’ ambush flipped an early advantage into an insurmountable deficit and prevented the Giants from clinching their first series sweep of the season, which would have allowed them to board their charter flight feeling better than when they arrived — with significant turbulence amid thunderstorms across the middle of the country — from a 1-6 start to the trip through Boston and Philadelphia.

Here are three takeaways from the 9-1 loss.

Tipping pitches

The Giants, like every team, have a department devoted to studying opposing pitchers and learning about what clues teams have on their own, and they certainly were hard at work as Winn began to get hit around in the fourth inning.

Running into trouble at Coors Field is hardly a problem unique to Winn, but the 26-year-old righty had cruised through the first three frames until the first six batters of the fourth connected for six hits — four for extra bases — on the first 10 pitches of the fourth.

Tover tripled on an 0-1 sinker. Ryan McMahon shot a splitter into right field at 110.7 mph. Winn went back to the sinker, and Elias Díaz drove a double at 106.5 mph off the bat. Sean Bouchard sent a slider screaming past Wilmer Flores, and singled on a splitter, setting the stage for Benton Doyle to end the assault with a 430-foot missile to make it 6-1.

Winn was tagged for seven runs on eight hits in 3⅔ innings, raising his ERA to 5.63.

After limiting opponents to five earned runs over 23 in his previous four starts (a 1.93 ERA), Winn has combined to allow 12 over only 4⅓ innings his past two — one more out recorded than runs allowed.

A different look

The Giants didn’t use one lineup more than four times all of last season, but almost a third of the way into 2024 have already used their most common batting order eight times. With a cavalcade of injuries, a getaway game at Coors Field and still no day off in sight, this was not one of those days.

Already missing Jorge Soler (shoulder), Patrick Bailey (concussion) and Tom Murphy (knee), the Giants took another blow when Jung Hoo Lee fouled a pitch off his toe Wednesday, knocking him out of the lineup for the series finale.

Making matters worse, Nick Ahmed was forced from the game midway through with left wrist discomfort, forcing Tyler Fitzgerald to take over at shortstop. They were already without Matt Chapman, who received a day off after snapping an 0-for-12 skid Wednesday.

Some combination of playing shorthanded and Cal Quantrill, the Rockies’ starter, halted whatever momentum the Giants’ beleaguered offense had built in the first two games of the series.

After breaking out for 13 runs the past two games — more than they had in their previous five — the Giants were limited to a lone run by Quantrill and a trio of Rockies relievers. Their only offense was provided by a home run that Michael Conforto snuck over the fence just inside the left-field foul pole, his team-leading seventh of the season.

A big home stand

The Giants (17-22) return home from their longest road trip of the season four games further under .500 and four games further out of first place than they were went they left San Francisco.

They are closer in the standings to the last-place Rockies (9-28) than they are the first-place Dodgers (26-13), whom they welcome to Oracle Park starting Monday for the first of only two series this season between the rivals on the shores of McCovey Cove.

Something else the Giants share in common with the Rockies: the only two teams yet to win three games in a row this season.

They went 3-7 over the 10-game trip and were outscored 54-30, failing to push more than three men across the plate in seven of those contests. While the first stretch came against the Red Sox (19-18) and the Phillies (26-12), two good teams that lead their respective leagues in ERA, Thursday’s loss to the lowly Rockies too closely resembled the start of the trip than their better-look past two games.

Set to return home Friday, the Giants have three games against the Reds (16-21) to get right before their archrivals come to town.