SAN FRANCISCO — Rafael Devers hit a tie-breaking grand slam in the fifth inning against Chicago White Sox reliever Grant Taylor on Sunday, leading the San Francisco Giants to an 8-5 victory in front of a sellout crowd of 40,220 at Oracle Park.
It was the second slam in as many days for the Giants, following one by Harrison Bader in the fifth inning of Saturday’s game.
Chase Meidroth and Miguel Vargas homered for the Sox in the loss.
Here are three takeaways after the Sox (26-26) dropped two of three in the series.
1. Command hiccups were costly for Sox starter Noah Schultz.
Sox starter Noah Schultz walked one and hit Luis Arraez twice in his four-plus innings on Sunday. And the Giants capitalized in each instance.
He walked Willy Adames leading off the first. Adames later scored in the inning on a double. Schultz hit Arraez with one out in the third. Casey Schmitt followed with a two-run home run, giving the Giants a 4-1 lead.
The Sox fought back to tie the score at 4. Schultz surrendered a double to Adames and then hit Arraez again to begin the fifth. That was his final batter. Taylor entered and walked Schmitt. Devers followed with the grand slam, giving the Giants an 8-4 lead.
“Just some command issues got him there,” manager Will Venable said of Schultz’s outing. “They did a good job of putting the ball in play hard. Some soft contact. They just made a lot of contact. Leadoff walk there to start things.
“He grinded there, battled, and did everything he could. Just command, just not where he wanted it to be.”
Schultz allowed six runs on six hits with one walk and one strikeout while falling to 2-4.
The left-hander described the performance as “not great.”
“Not giving the team a great chance to win,” Schultz said.
2. History was made the tough way on Friday.
Sam Antonacci found a painful way into the record books on Friday, becoming the first Sox player to be hit by a pitch twice in one inning. He was plunked by Trevor McDonald and Ryan Borucki in the fourth inning.
“Sam was destined to be the first one,” Sox starter Davis Martin said on Friday.
Antonacci was hit by a pitch 10 times over his first 33 career games. According to Stats Perform, that’s the second-fastest pace in major-league history behind Miguel Amaya of the Cubs (29 games) in 2023.
He scored both times after being hit during the nine-run fourth inning on Friday, helping the Sox to a 9-4 victory.
“Just any way imaginable to get the job done, he’s going to get the job done,” Martin said of Antonacci. “And everybody knows it. That’s the case. And to spearhead that lineup, I couldn’t think of anybody better.”
Antonacci entered Sunday tied for the major-league lead with the 10 hit by pitches.
“It’s a skill that he has developed,” Venable said on Saturday. “It’s really interesting how he just stays in there and gets hit. He’s not like leaning into stuff. He just ends up getting hit a lot.
“It’s very interesting, but it’s definitely a skill set.”
3. Execution just wasn’t as crisp as the Sox finished 2-4 on the trip.
The Sox trailed 2-1, but threatened in the second inning on Sunday after a double by Derek Hill gave the team runners on second and third with one out.
Tristan Peters executed a bunt, but the Giants’ first baseman Schmitt got to the ball quickly — and Colson Montgomery remained at third base as San Francisco got the out at first.
“I think (Montgomery) thought it was right back to the pitcher, so it was just a read thing,” Venable said. “In that situation, it is a safety (squeeze) so you trust the player to make a read. In that situation, you’ve probably got to give it a shot. But that’s a play we work on, we’ll continue to learn from.”
Luisangel Acuña grounded out to third baseman Matt Chapman to end the inning.
Down 4-1 in the fourth, Peters bunted again and moved runners to second and third with a sacrifice. Acuña collected an RBI on a sacrifice fly to right field. Giants starter Robbie Ray rebounded by striking out Meidroth to strand a runner on third.
The Sox made Ray pay for back-to-back walks to begin the fifth, converting them into runs. But overall, the Sox went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position on Sunday.
“We did a good job of drawing the walks (eight total), just got to be able to cash in,” Venable said.
The execution, whether it was losing pop-ups in the sun defensively on Saturday or leaving runners on base on Sunday, was just a little off for the Sox during the last two games of the series.
“After maybe not our cleanest baseball, to come in and have a chance to go 3-3 on a road trip, and not able to get it done, so that’s disappointing,” Venable said. “Some stuff that we didn’t execute situationally where we did before, so we’ll continue to go to work on that stuff.
“A road trip in which we were a win away from feeling pretty good about it, but weren’t able to get it.”
