SF Giants avoid sweep vs. Rockies after Melvin’s pregame ejection

DENVER — With time winding down to solidify their position in the playoff race, the Giants were in desperate need of a shot in the arm when they arrived at Coors Field Sunday morning after dropping their first two games of the second half to the worst team in the National League.

Whether it was Bob Melvin’s pregame ejection, Jorge Soler’s mammoth leadoff home run that followed shortly thereafter or the electric six innings from rookie right-hander Hayden Birdsong, the Giants got what they needed to eke out a win over the Rockies, 3-2, and avoid an embarrassing three-game sweep.

“I can’t be for sure, but he’s probably been planning that since last night,” said shortstop Tyler Fitzgerald, who was one of the few Giants to realize that their skipper had been ejected amid their preparations for the game. At least for those who were aware, “it definitely fired us up a little bit.”

When Soler launched the fourth pitch of the game from Colorado starter Ryan Feltner halfway up the seats in center field, the Giants’ designated hitter was still unaware that Melvin was watching from his office in the clubhouse. He only learned in the second or third inning, when Thairo Estrada came up to him and said, “Hey, it seems like they ejected the manager.” At which point, Soler surveyed the dugout and responded, “Yeah, it seems they did.”

It was a similar realization for Birdsong, who went the entirety of his outing without noticing Melvin’s absence until he returned to the clubhouse and saw the manager sitting in his office.

“What inning did he get ejected in?” Birdsong asked reporters afterward, unaware of Melvin’s pregame tirade during the lineup card exchange. “I had no idea until I came in here and was like, ‘Where’s BoMel?’ … Obviously there are pitching coaches I talk to after every inning, but other than that I just zone everything out.”

Repeatedly expressing his displeasure over the umpiring as his team dropped the first two games of their series, Melvin accompanied bench coach Ryan Christianson to home plate for the pregame lineup card exchange — typically a solo duty — and gave the crew a piece of his mind.

Afterward, however, Melvin disputed the notion that he had planned out his ejection, or the premise that it could juice his club still searching for its first win since the All-Star break.

“That’s more of an in-game type of thing,” Melvin said. “I didn’t plan that. It wasn’t choreographed. I just probably went too far.”

Either way, it didn’t take long for things to take a positive turn, as Soler whacked the fourth leadoff home run of his career — measured at 478 feet, the longest of his career and the farthest any player has hit a ball this season — opening up an early 1-0 lead that the Giants wouldn’t relinquish behind the strongest effort of Birdsong’s young career.

Receiving his second straight start after homering and doubling in a two-RBI effort Saturday, Fitzgerald padded the Giants’ lead with his second home run in as many games to lead off the third inning, and Matt Chapman scored on a passed ball the next inning to extend their advantage to 3-0.

The only damage the Rockies were able to muster against the Giants’ 22-year-old rookie in his fifth major-league start came on a slider that he hung to Brendan Rodgers, who punished it for a two-run home run in the fourth inning, after issuing one of his two walks to Ryan McMahon.

Birdsong was otherwise unhittable, in the most literal definition of the word.

Completing a career-high six innings, Birdsong struck out 12 batters, including six of the final eight batters he faced after Rodgers’ home run. The last Giants pitcher to record a dozen strikeouts in one game was Logan Webb in his first start of 2023, and nobody as young as Birdsong — 22 years, 326 days — had done it since Madison Bumgarner fanned 12 Astros in a 6-3 win on June 12, 2012.

Combining a fastball that touched 97 mph with a twin bill of breaking pitches, Birdsong generated 27 swings and misses on 98 pitches, matching the Padres’ Dylan Cease — the MLB leader with 159 strikeouts this season — for the most whiffs in one start by any pitcher in the majors this season.

“The offspeed was fantastic,” Melvin said. “And he got over a hurdle for him being able to get through the sixth inning. He was rolling. Really only the one bad pitch was the pitch to Rodgers. … Just a fantastic outing for a lot of different reasons.”

Even more impressively, Birdsong turned in the outing he did while throwing his fastball only 28 times, landing it for just nine strikes, while using his breaking pitches on two-thirds of his offerings, recording 12 swings and misses with his curveball, 10 with his slider and just four with his heater.

“I always think I have it, especially after getting a zero in that first inning,” Birdsong said. “I was landing curveballs over and over again. The slider was there today. I didn’t know I had it, but I guess it worked out. … It was cool to see. It helps my confidence a little bit just knowing my stuff plays up here.”

In total, Giants pitchers fanned 15 Rockies, tied for their second-most strikeouts in a game this season.

Melvin’s ejection was his fourth of the season and the 63rd of his career, 16th all-time, but certainly the earliest.

While rare, Melvin’s was not the only instance of an ejection prior to first pitch. In fact, Giants pitching coach Bryan Price was tossed during the lineup card exchange on May 23, 2015, when he was managing the Reds, while griping about calls from the previous day’s game.

Melvin complained about the umpiring during the first two games of the series, both from the dugout steps and in postgame interviews.

The hit-by-pitch that put Elias Díaz on base ahead of the Rockies’ two-run home run Friday night Melvin said was a “phantom hit-by-pitch” and that “I haven’t seen an umpire talk a guy into going to first base on a hit-by-pitch, either,” when “the guy is trying to argue that he didn’t get hit by a pitch.”

The same game, Chris Conroy, serving as the first-base umpire, failed to get out of the way of a line drive down the foul line, turning a potential extra-base RBI hit from Brett Wisely into an inning-ending out.