Inside-the-park shot among 3 homers to hurt Stripling

SAN FRANCISCO -- Home runs have bedeviled Ross Stripling all year, but none have been as incredible as the one he surrendered to Luke Raley on Wednesday afternoon at Oracle Park.

Raley came off the bench and delivered a wild inside-the-park home run off Stripling in the sixth inning, capping a three-homer barrage that powered the Rays to a 6-1 win over the Giants.

After Tampa Bay center fielder Jose Siri departed with a sprained pinky finger, Raley entered the game as a pinch-hitter and promptly crushed a first-pitch slider from Stripling 425 feet to right-center field. The ball ended up hitting off the bricks and caromed back onto the outfield wall, rolling away from Michael Conforto before skipping past Wade Meckler in center field.

The speedy Raley easily completed his trip around the bases before Meckler could make a throw back to the infield, giving the Rays a commanding 6-0 lead. Raley became only the 12th player to hit an inside-the-park home run at Oracle Park and the first since Denard Span on Aug. 19, 2017.

“It was one of those where he hit it, and I thought it was a homer,” Stripling said. “And then you’re like, ‘Oh, man, that might be a double.’ And then it just goes 100 yards that way, and right away, I knew. He was on second base before Wade was even turned around running after it. I didn’t even go back up home. It was a home run.”

It was the latest bad break for the Giants (64-57), who have lost eight of their last 11 games after dropping four consecutive series to the A’s, Angels, Rangers and Rays. They’ll attempt to regroup on Thursday’s off-day before gearing up for a challenging six-game road trip through Atlanta and Philadelphia.

San Francisco’s feeble offense, which has been held to exactly one run in nine of the club’s last 25 games, remains a concern. The club finished 1-for-5 with runners in scoring position and grounded into four double plays, the last of which quashed a bases-loaded threat in the seventh inning. The bigger issue Wednesday may have been the rough outing by Stripling, who was tagged for five runs on 11 hits over six innings in his 19th appearance of the year.

The Rays opened the scoring on Isaac Paredes’ RBI single off opener Ryan Walker in the first inning and then added on against Stripling, who gave up a leadoff homer to Josh Lowe in the fourth and a two-run shot to Brandon Lowe in the fifth. The 33-year-old right-hander has now allowed a team-high 20 homers over 78 1/3 innings and leads the Majors with a 6 percent home run rate this year.

“I think he’s going to have to execute his pitches down in the zone as much as possible,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “There are some good hitters in that Rays lineup, and when balls are kind of up in the zone, more in the middle of the plate, they’re pretty good at getting the fat part of the bat on it. That’s what they did today.

“We’ve talked about this in the past, but part of Ross’ calling card last year was to suppress this sort of damage, and he was often in count leverage. He’s been in count leverage quite a bit, although today, especially earlier in the day, he was falling behind a little bit. But most important, he has to stay off the sweet part of barrels. That only comes with executing his location because he’s so dependent on his command.”

Stripling acknowledged that he’s been dealing with some back stiffness, which caused his velocity to dip and left him with even less margin for error against the Rays. He missed 35 games with a low back strain earlier this year, but he expressed confidence that he’ll be able to manage his latest flareup and continue to pitch without limitations.

“When you have a history of it, it can kind of creep in and out,” Stripling said. “I wouldn’t say it’s anything serious. Nothing compared to what I went through earlier in the year when I went on the IL. It’s just kind of one of those days where you wake up a little bit stiff and you have a hard time loosening up and just kind of never got all the way there. For the most part, I still had a lot of pitches that were at my normal velocity, but I definitely had some that were in the 88 [mph] range.”

Now that Raley’s wacky home run is in the books, Stripling is hoping he’ll be able to put his problems with the long ball behind him, as well.

“I was just texting with my dad, and he was like, ‘Maybe it’s one like that that ends the home run curse,’” Stripling said. “Hopefully that’s the case.”